Great and Terrible Things
by The Riddle House
Summary: Before he fashioned a new name for himself, Tom Riddle was just a boy, the unknown heir to a thousand-year-old dynasty. He thought eminence his birthright—but greatness, he learned, could not be attained without sacrifice. (Canon divergent.)
1. Witchcraft and Wizardry

**CHAPTER ONE**

 **Witchcraft and Wizardry**

 _1937_

* * *

Death came draped in a white sheet, as if covering the too-still form of a lifeless boy could bring decency and dignity to the indecent and undignified.

Sammy Harlow was the third child at the orphanage to succumb to the flu in as many weeks, and Mrs. Cole had ordered that no one should enter Room 29 (just two doors down from Tom's own quarters) until the body was taken care of. But some of the boys had decided to sneak into Sammy's room, and Dennis Bishop dragged Tom along.

It smelled awful, like sweat, vomit, and loosened bowels. Like bodily weakness made into a scent.

"Pull down the sheet," Dennis said, and he pushed Tom closer to the bed.

There was little and less that scared him, but when Tom tried to reach out and grasp the linens that concealed Sammy, he found himself frozen. Afraid that if he touched the body, then the illness that had killed this other boy might kill him too, and then he'd be just another cold corpse under a white sheet. A child that was born and lived and died in the same dreary place without doing much of anything that mattered. Insignificant and unremembered.

He backed away from the bed, and even though he felt ashamed of himself for this fear, he knew he had to get far away from Sammy, and quick. But Dennis, a foot taller and a stone heavier than Tom, caught him by the shoulders and said, "You're not going anywhere, Riddle." He held him still, made him stay and watch as Allen Polliver uncovered the body.

Sammy's freckled skin looked waxen and bloodless, his limbs motionless, rigid. With the sheet thrown off the corpse, the smell of death was stronger now, and Tom felt bile rise in the back of his throat. He tried to throw Dennis off, but the older boy wouldn't let go. The more he struggled, the harder Dennis held him, until Tom could feel bruises blooming on his upper arms.

 _I hope he dies, I hope he dies like Sammy._ Sometimes, if he wanted it enough, Tom could make bad things happen to the people who hurt him. Nothing happened now, though, no matter how much he willed it.

"What's going on?"

It was Mrs. Cole, and Tom had never been happier to see her ugly, old face.

"Nothing," Dennis said, hurrying to let go of Tom. "We was just—"

"I don't care what you were 'just,'" Mrs. Cole said. "I told you to stay out of here. Now get back to your rooms before I take a strap to the lot of you."

Tom didn't need telling twice. He went to his room, got in bed, buried himself beneath the thin blankets, and tried to sleep. But he couldn't stop thinking about the thing that used to be Sammy Harlow. There was something about its lack of movement which unnerved him. An unnatural stillness that bespoke the lifelessness of the body.

Tom rolled over, and the new pressure on his sore arm hurt, but this pain was nothing to the fear he felt. The flu had already claimed three children. What was to stop it from taking a fourth?

So Tom tossed and turned, worried himself nearly sick, and did not sleep.

* * *

Spring came to London suddenly. One day there was snow in the courtyard, ice slicking the stoop, and a coldness pervaded every inch of the orphanage. A special coldness that came from months of winter weather worming its slow way through brick and mortar, into the walls and the floors and every space in between, until it finally sunk its careful claws under your skin.

One day there were all of these things, and the next, none. Green leaves seemed to come awake overnight, the trees covering their bareness, modest after a season's naked hibernation.

Most of the bigger children had chosen to take advantage of the surprising warmth outside, to soak up the sunlight and play in the mud, but the little ones remained indoors, listening to Martha read.

Tom would never admit it, but he liked fairy tales. Stories of the grand and impossible, full of magic, adventure, and comeuppance. Today he sat in the hall just outside of Martha's room, playing with the yo-yo he'd liberated from Norman Baxter, while the older girl read "Snow White." This one was his favorite from the Grimms' book; he loved the ending, where the old queen was forced into red-hot iron shoes. He could picture it, metal glowing like the burning coils on the kitchen stovetop. Flesh blistering and smoking while the evil stepmother danced to her death.

Just now, Tom heard Mrs. Cole, and he hastily stowed the yo-yo in his pocket.

"...Room 29 is free," she was saying, and her sharp voice had taken on an unusually soft tone. "That's where you'll stay."

Mrs. Cole rounded the corner with a young girl in tow. She was about Tom's own age, with long, dark red curls and skin so fair that his first stupid thought was that she looked like Snow White. Except Snow White was supposed to be beautiful, and this girl was too scrawny to be pretty. Her neat shirt was crisp and well made, her skirt clean and unwrinkled, but both hung off of her delicate frame. She looked like a pauper masquerading in a rich girl's clothes. And there was something wild in her pale eyes that reminded him of the street children the orphanage took in every year—mongrels from the gutters of London, like Dennis. She carried a small, sad sack of things in one hand (relics from her previous life, he assumed), and a worn out teddy bear in the other.

Bruises colored her shins and knobby knees. Some purple, some blue, some the sickly yellowish green of the nearly-but-not-quite-healed. Pink welts striped her legs too, upraised like bee stings, but thick as his thumb. There was a precision to these marks, an odd, intentional symmetry, and even at ten Tom was educated enough in the ugliness of the world to understand that none of this was accidental.

He might have felt sorry for this girl, if he ever felt sorry for anyone. But there was something in the way she carried herself that repelled pity.

"Get off of the floor, Tom," Mrs. Cole said. "And go outside. You're too old for story time."

"Don't want to go out there. It's gonna rain."

She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "There's not one bloody cloud in sight. What on earth makes you think it's going to rain?"

"I can smell it," Tom lied. Truly, he just didn't want to deal with Dennis and his cronies.

Mrs. Cole pursed her lips. "I don't have time for you right now," she said. "Come on, dear, I'll show you to your room…"

The redhaired girl followed Mrs. Cole, and as soon as they were out of sight, Tom pulled the yo-yo from his pocket and began to play with it again.

* * *

The room was clean, if small and spare, and Adriana felt too thankful that she didn't have to share her space to mind the simplicity of her new quarters. Mrs. Cole's gruff gentleness and curiosity were almost too much to bear; she couldn't have tolerated a roommate's kindly inquisition too.

After the matron left, Adriana sat on the bed, ignoring the springs poking her through the mattress, and unpacked her bag. Most of her things had been left behind, but she'd had time to grab a few changes of clothes, her spinning top, a hairbrush, a picture book, and Mr. Bear. He looked a little worse for the wear, as the stitching along his back was coming undone, white cotton stuffing peeking through the hole.

She hid the teddy bear beneath the bed, out of sight, so she wouldn't have to look at it, and put everything else in her wardrobe. Then Adriana lay down, stared up at the ceiling, and imagined different figures in the brown water stain there, like finding shapes in fluffy clouds, or constellations out of stars. It looked, she thought, most like a skunk.

 _Beautiful_.

This would be her home for the next eight years, so Adriana thought she and the skunk had plenty of time to become good friends.

Her stomach rumbled—she'd had nothing to eat but bread for the last two days, and little enough of that—but Adriana was used to being hungry. The light-headed hollowness was familiar to her, as expected as the sting of a leather belt. She ignored the dull ache of her empty belly, just like she ignored the bruised and welted tenderness of her back and legs.

It should hurt more than this, to be thrown away like so much trash, but abandonment felt startlingly like freedom. She would not examine the reasons why her mother had left her here.

She would, Adriana decided, never think about that again.

* * *

There was not a garden at the orphanage. There was a bare courtyard, scrubby grass prescribed within its rectangular boundaries, and in the spring sometimes dandelions would bloom along the base of the building. Until Mrs. Cole took a pesticide to them, a little bottled Black Death for plants, and sprayed her chemical plague all over the yellow flowers.

There were four things Mrs. Cole did not tolerate, Tom had learned: laziness, dirtiness, optimism, and weeds. The dandelions were guilty on the last two charges, and therefore had to go, he supposed.

No, there was not a garden at the orphanage, but there _were_ garden snakes, and one of them was the closest thing to a friend that Tom had. He called the fellow Nag, after the cobra from "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi," because he believed that names were of the greatest importance and his only companion should not be without one.

Tom waited until the courtyard was empty to sneak over to the east side of the building and see if Nag was there. The last thing he needed was some busybody like Amy Benson spying on him and reporting to Mrs. Cole that crazy Tom Riddle talked to snakes.

" _Are you there_?" he asked.

" _Here_ ," said Nag. " _You were gone a long time_." The serpent slithered out of the grass and into his outstretched hand. He curled up into a comfortable coil and rested on the lines of Tom's palm.

He never apologized (except when he had to pretend to be sorry to get out of trouble), and Tom did not start now. " _Couldn't be helped_."

They talked about small things and big things, and although the life of a garden snake was more boring than not, Tom listened, because it was nice to have someone listen back.

Then the front door opened, and he hissed a quiet goodbye to Nag before letting him slither into the grass.

* * *

Adriana's first breakfast at the orphanage was porridge and milk. As was her second and third and fourth. The fare tasted plain, neither good nor bad, and it was regular, if repetitive. She could count on three square meals a day, heavy on bread and potatoes, light on meat, luxuries like butter altogether absent.

She did not like to eat in front of others. It was a struggle for her to keep certain foods down, and Adriana preferred not to have an audience when she fought this particular battle. But there was little choice at the orphanage refectory, where every table was overflowing with children. Today she found a seat with a group of girls about her own age: Amy Benson, Rachel Ross, and Ashleigh Carlisle.

Amy, a rat-faced girl who always shadowed Dennis Bishop, complained about the food and Tom Riddle by turns. "He's just awful," Amy said to Adriana, "you should stay away from him."

"Hm." Adriana took a careful bite of porridge. It was thick and clumpy, and it tasted like the color grey.

"He's a thief and a liar," Rachel said. "Did you know he took Norman's yo-yo? And Patty's mouth organ too!"

Adriana wasn't sure which Tom was Tom Riddle. She'd met at least two in the last week. "Is he the blonde, freckled one?"

"No, that's Tom Wilkinson," Ashleigh said. "Riddle is the black-haired boy at the end of the table."

She recognized him right away as the handsome boy that Mrs. Cole had reprimanded on her first day at the orphanage. His room was a couple of doors down from her own, and she'd seen him lurking about the hallway, playing with his (apparently stolen) yo-yo. He never seemed to have any friends about, and she figured his sticky fingers had something to do with that. Adriana hoped Riddle wouldn't try to take anything of hers, because if he did, he would swiftly come to regret it.

Her first weeks at the orphanage passed uneventfully enough. The days were simple and straightforward: breakfast, schooling, lunch, schooling, recess, dinner, bed. Despite an initial attempt at friendliness, the girls in her year quickly realized that Adriana cared little for their company (or anyone else's) and gave her the solitude she preferred without much fuss. It wasn't that she disliked the other children—they didn't much matter to her one way or another—but she was too used to being alone to know how to seek companionship.

Mother had rarely even let her out of her room, much less the house, and certainly never allowed her to attend school. Her early education had been sporadic at best, dependent upon her parents' whims, and now that she was facing consistent classes, Adriana found that she was hopelessly behind. Mr. Caulfield, the elementary teacher, told her plainly that she was nearly illiterate and gave her the same thin books the seven- and eight-year-olds were reading to study from. This stung her pride, but not enough to motivate her to pick up _The Little Elephant_ by John G. Goodman and give it more than a cursory perusal. Caulfield threatened her with paddling, called her stupid and ignorant in front of the class, then privately told her she was smart enough but lazy. Adriana ignored his backhanded compliments and his insults with equal indifference, and _The Little Elephant_ went under her bed along with Mr. Bear, unread.

The orphanage was an unpleasant place, full of thuggish children and uncaring adults, and there were things about home that Adriana missed. The taste of her mother's cooking, when she was allowed to enjoy it; a soft bed piled with warm blankets; the spicewood scent of Father's cologne; and, most of all, her little brother's infectious laugh.

 _Don't think about that_ , she reminded herself.

Her bruises slowly turned yellow, then disappeared into the landscape of her skin, and for the first time since she was a very small child, she did not have to worry that new injuries would replace the old. Habits died hard, however, and each time Adriana felt her power welling up inside her, like water pushing against a dam, she invariably panicked. What if someone saw? What if they punished her for it, the way Mother always had? What if someone hurt her?

But curiosity won out over fear, as it often had at home, and so Adriana found every deserted nook of the orphanage and set about exercising the ability her mother so despised.

* * *

Tom paid little attention to the girl who arrived with the new spring, but he noticed things about her in a peripheral sort of way: she spoke with a funny accent, almost like a Kraut; she ate neatly but slowly, as if careful not to make herself sick; and even after a few weeks at the orphanage, she seemed to have no friends. He did not bother to learn her name.

Tom expected nothing great or magnificent from this girl—and really, he hardly ever anticipated anyone doing extraordinary things, besides himself. So when he found her in a corner of the attic with a rock floating five inches above her cupped hands, he was surprised.

The stone fell into her grasp, whatever power that had held it suspended snuffed out like a candle. She looked at him with eyes as colorless as ice and said, "Don't tell anyone. Please."

Tom sat down on the dusty floor, and with the ease of many hours' practice, he willed the rock to rise in an arc from her hands to his own. "You can do it too?" he asked, and he could not keep the eagerness out of his voice. There was someone like him. He was not, as he had always thought, utterly alone.

The girl didn't answer, but when Tom sent the stone her way, she allowed it to float over her hands again. They went back and forth this way five times, ten, more, until Tom stopped counting and just played.

"What's your name?" he asked.

"Adriana," she said.

"I'm Tom Riddle."

"Oh, I know," she said. "The others talk about you."

Tom scowled. "What do they say?"

"That you're strange and a bully and you take things that aren't yours." Adriana spun the stone in a circle this time, a little pirouette in the air, before bouncing it his way. "Are you really a thief?"

Tom shrugged and said, "You don't deserve to have something if you can't keep it."

He expected her to argue with this, but she didn't.

After that day in the attic, Tom often snuck into Room 29 to practice with Adriana. He always had to seek her out, to convince her that they wouldn't get caught. Sometimes she agreed, and they would spend an afternoon playing catch without using their hands, or growing flowers along the orphanage wall (dandelions, Tom insisted, just to torture Mrs. Cole). And sometimes she told him to go away and leave her alone.

Today, Adriana relented, and so they sat on her bed, changing glass marbles into stone.

"What d'you think it is?" Tom asked. "These things we can do?"

Adriana tapped one of her marbles, and it transformed back into blue glass. "Witchcraft," she said, softly but certainly.

"Witchcraft?" Tom asked. "You off your rocker?"

She frowned at him, and with a flick of her wrist all the marbles vanished.

"Hey! What'd you go and do that for?" Tom closed his eyes and tried to pull the marbles back from wherever Adriana had sent them, but it felt as though the essence of the glass and stone had somehow merged with everything else in the room, and he did not have the finesse to put it back together.

"I guess you don't deserve to have them," Adriana said.

He didn't like that, the way she used his own words against him so flippantly. In part because it was insulting, but mostly because she was right.

"Why d'you think what we do is witchcraft?" Tom asked.

She was quiet for a long moment. Then Adriana said, "My mother used to call me a witch, so I reckon that's what I am."

That statement inspired more questions than it answered. First and foremost, Tom wondered, if she was a witch, what did that make him? A warlock? Sorcerer? Wizard? And were there others like the two of them, or were they the only children in all of Britain to have this power?

Somehow, Tom doubted it.


	2. Forget-me-nots

**CHAPTER TWO**

 **Forget-me-nots**

 _1937_

* * *

"You can't read?" Tom asked.

He'd caught her with her picture book from home ( _Caterpillar Joe_ ), admiring the metamorphosis of Joe into a butterfly on page 12. Adriana snapped the book closed and said, "Course I can read, you idiot."

"Then why've you got a baby's book?" he asked, smirking.

"I like it," she said, and this was true enough. _Caterpillar Joe_ was one of the only books Mother had permitted her to own, and Adriana always liked the bright colors, if not so much the large, childish words on the pages.

"Right," Tom said, skeptical. "Anyway, I want to show you something. Come on."

He had a way about him that demanded both attention and obedience, but Adriana was done following anyone else's commands. So she said, "No," mostly to spite him, and returned to her picture book.

Tom plucked _Caterpillar Joe_ out of her hands, frowning, and said, "Don't ignore me," in an imperious voice that ought to have sounded ridiculous coming from a ten-year-old, but which oddly didn't.

Adriana snatched the book back, although any desire to read it had been effectively extinguished. "What is it you want to show me?"

"You'll see." He took her by the arm and pulled her to her feet. If it had been anyone besides Tom who laid his hands on her, she'd have used her power to throw them backward. "This better be good," she said.

He led her outside, to the courtyard, which was empty of children this early in the morning. It was unseasonably cool, and dew still glimmered on the grass under the wan sunlight. Tom finally stopped and let go of her once they reached the east corner of the building, where he knelt and began looking closely at the ground. What he possibly hoped to find, she couldn't imagine, but then he opened his mouth and hissed. He made the sounds with the same certainty with which he spoke English, as if he was fluent in a strange, sibilant language.

A garden snake slithered out of the grass and into Tom's outstretched hand. It hissed back at him, and although Adriana couldn't understand a word of it, she knew they were having a conversation.

Tom smiled a wild, brilliant smile that somehow made his finely carved features appear less perfect than usual, his dark eyes gleaming a deep reddish-brown rather than their typical black. "This is Nag," he said to her.

"You can talk to snakes?" Adriana asked.

Tom nodded, no longer smiling, more solemn now.

Perhaps she should have found this revelation intimidating, even scary, but she didn't.

"Can you understand him too?" Tom asked. He sounded both hopeful and wary, and she could guess that he was torn, half wanting to share this ability with her, half desiring to be singular, special.

"No," Adriana said. "Sounds like gibberish to me." Even so, she reached out and petted Nag, sliding her first two fingers down his scaled back, from the top of his head to the tip of his tail. "He's a cute little fellow," she admitted.

Nag hissed softly, and she didn't need Tom to translate to know that the snake liked her.

Still, Tom spoke to Nag, maybe asking a question, but Adriana would never find out what it was he said.

"What's all this?" Billy Stubbs was a short, husky boy who ran around with Dennis, and like the rest of their group, he hated Tom. Now he looked on both of them as if they were crazy.

Tom let go of Nag, but not quickly enough. Billy stepped on the snake, snuffing out its life with one cruel stomp.

Tom looked at Billy, and there was such heat behind his glare that Adriana was surprised the older boy didn't recoil.

"You was talking to that snake," Billy accused.

Tom stood up. "So what if I was?"

"You're a freak," Billy said, "just like your circus-freak mum."

"At least my mother wasn't a tramp like yours," Tom said.

Adriana hadn't the slightest idea whether or not Billy's mother was truly a whore. Regardless, he charged at Tom and pushed him backward. It might have come to blows, but Martha stepped outside and shouted, "Hey! Stop it!"

She strode over, grabbed both of them by their arms, and said, "We're going to Mrs. Cole."

Adriana watched them leave. Then she turned back to the body of Nag, scooped him up in her hand, and dug a small hole along the base of the building. Dirt got under her fingernails, but she didn't mind. She laid the garden snake to rest, covered him with newly turned earth. Adriana tapped the ground, and a sprig of blue forget-me-nots sprung up in the wake of her touch, because everyone deserved flowers on their grave.

* * *

Billy owned a rabbit, a fluffy brown rodent with white patches and a twitchy nose that never stopped sniffing. Where he'd gotten it, Tom didn't know, nor why Mrs. Cole had allowed him to keep a pet, as she seemed to hate most animals on principle. Billy doted on that rabbit, always feeding it whatever fresh vegetables he could sneak from the kitchen and carrying it around the orphanage like a proud mother with a fat infant. It had some ridiculous name from _Through the Looking-Glas_ s, Tweedledee or Tweedledum, Tom couldn't remember which and hardly cared. What it was called didn't much matter, anyhow; it would be dead soon enough.

He stole a length of rope from the ground floor closet and waited until recess to sneak up to Room 38, where Billy kept his pet in a wood and chicken-wire hutch. Tom opened the cage, grasped the rabbit around its middle, and pulled it out. The creature kicked with surprising force for an animal no heavier than three pounds, and Tom held it close to his chest. It buried its face in the crook of his arm, panting and trembling, and he felt a sudden lurch of doubt. It was not the rabbit, after all, who had killed Nag. But nothing would hurt Billy as much as depriving him of his precious pet, so Tom went downstairs to the refectory, which he knew would be deserted in the lull between lunch and dinner.

All he had to do was will it, and the rope circled itself around the rabbit's throat like a hemp collar. A moment later the creature was strung up from the rafters by its neck, dangling limp and lifeless.

Tom hurried back to his room, heart pounding. He intended to hide there, alone, but when he opened the door he found Adriana sitting on his bed, playing with his yo-yo.

"That belongs to me," he said.

She shrugged. "I heard it was Norman's."

"Well, it's mine now, and I didn't say you could play with it," Tom snapped. "You're always coming into my room without asking and touching my stuff."

Adriana frowned and asked, "What's got you all bothered?"

He thought of the rabbit hanging from the rafters, and he wondered briefly whether he might have the power to bring a dead thing back to life.

"Nothing," Tom lied.

"Then stop being an arse," she said.

They practiced levitating small objects across the room until dinner time, and then he and Adriana headed downstairs. He didn't want to have to look at the rabbit again, but he was eager to see Billy's reaction. Tom wondered if the other boy would cry.

He didn't have to wait long to find out. Mrs. Cole was ushering children out of the refectory, and as he passed by, Tom heard her mutter, "Don't know how we're going to get the poor thing down…" Martha had an arm wrapped around Billy's shoulders. He was sobbing noisily, and it wasn't a pretty sight. Tears streaked his blotchy cheeks and snot dripped from his piggish nose. _He deserves it,_ Tom thought. _He killed Nag._

"What did you do?" Adriana whispered.

"Nothing," Tom said, and it wasn't difficult at all to sound indignant.

Just then, Billy looked up, and he pointed at Tom. "I know you're the one that done it, Riddle!"

Martha shushed him and rubbed slow circles on his back. "Tom couldn't have, Billy. Think about it. How would he have gotten up there?"

"I—I dunno," Billy said, "but he did it! Mrs. Cole, you're gonna punish him, aren't you?"

Mrs. Cole looked at Tom like she'd very much like to beat him, but she shook her head. "There's no way to know how it happened, Billy. Go on to your room, and I'll have someone bring you up some supper."

Once he was out of sight, Mrs. Cole took Tom by the arm and half-dragged him into her office. "Sit," she said curtly, so Tom sat in the chair before her cluttered desk. He'd been inside this room many times before, and it seemed to grow shabbier with each visit, the carpet patchier, the mismatched furniture more threadbare.

Mrs. Cole didn't bother dissembling. It wasn't her way. "You killed that rabbit, didn't you?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Tom said, and he was careful to keep his voice innocent, puzzled.

"Of course you don't," she said. "But let me make this clear to you, Tom: that sort of behavior isn't right in the head, and if I ever catch you doing something like this again, I won't hesitate to have you looked at. Do you understand?"

"Yes." Tom wasn't scared of doctors, but he didn't fancy the idea of being examined. Much as he hated the orphanage, he was certain an asylum would be far worse.

"You can go," Mrs. Cole said. "And try not to cause any more trouble."

* * *

Tom jerked awake, overwhelmed by the suffocating sensation of weight on his chest. He felt a surge of fury when he realized someone was on top of him, holding him down and covering his mouth.

"You think it's funny, hurting things smaller than you?" Dennis asked. "Let's see how you like it, Riddle."

Tom tried to push Dennis off, but the bigger boy was strong and thickly built, and it was useless. Before he could concentrate and use his power, Dennis punched him in the stomach, right below the ribs, and the pain of it was enough to knock the wind out of him. Tom coughed, wheezed, and tried to suck in a breath. He couldn't, though, because Dennis' other hand was still firmly clasped over his mouth, smothering him. He might have panicked, but he was too angry to be frightened, and without focusing, without even trying, Dennis was vaulted backward, as if some invisible hand had thrown him.

Tom breathed deeply, filling his lungs with sweet air, once, twice, again, until he no longer felt like he was drowning. Then he stood and walked over to Dennis. The other boy scrambled away, and his eyes were wide and white with fear. "How—how'd you do that?" he asked, and Tom had never heard him sound half so scared.

Dennis had tried to beat him and would have done if Tom hadn't been able to stop it. _I ought to hurt him. Hurt him till he wants to scream, except I'll shut his mouth so he can't_.

The door opened, and Amy Benson, who'd apparently been keeping a lookout, stuck her pinched face inside to say, "Martha's coming, Dennis, you'd better—Dennis, what happened?"

He stood on shaking legs, threw Tom a petrified look, said, "You stay away from me, Riddle!" and hurried from the room.

Tom went back to bed, but he couldn't sleep. Anger and satisfaction were thrumming through his veins in equal measure, and he was drunk on the fear he'd seen in Dennis' eyes. If Amy hadn't opened that door he might have taught his biggest bully a lesson, and he was disappointed that the opportunity escaped him.

He got up, left his room, and walked down the hall to number 29. Adriana was asleep, but she woke quickly enough when Tom said her name. She propped herself up on an elbow, rubbed her bleary eyes, and asked, "What do you want?"

"Dennis just tried to beat me," he said, without preamble.

" _What?_ " She sat up straighter, alert and concerned. "Are you all right?"

Tom sat on the edge of her bed, and when he held his hands out in front of him he saw more than felt that they were trembling. "I'm fine." He told Adriana everything that had happened, and then he said, "I'm gonna get them back, both of them, for trying to hurt me."

Adriana did not attempt to talk him out of it. This was one of the things Tom liked best about her, that she seemed to know who he was and didn't care to change him. "What are you going to do to them?" she asked.

"I dunno yet," he said, "but when I'm done they'll never bother me again."

Tom looked at her, at her pale face, white under the moonlight streaming in through the open window. Her cheeks had grown fuller in the months since she'd come to Wool's, and although she was still rather thin, he could see now that Adriana was actually quite pretty. Not for the first time, he wondered who had mistreated her. Who had left her on an orphanage doorstep starved and bruised and welted. _If someone did that to me, I'd kill them_.

"Will you help me?" Tom asked.

Adriana was quiet for a long moment, so long that he expected her to refuse. But then she met his eyes and said, "Yeah, all right. I'll help you."

* * *

She didn't expect Tom to waste time taking his revenge. He had, after all, retaliated against Billy Stubbs swiftly enough. Although he denied laying a finger on that rabbit, Adriana didn't believe him for a second. Tom was as dishonest as he was spiteful, and he would hesitate neither to kill Billy's pet nor to lie about it. To her surprise, though, the days passed uneventfully enough, and he seemed in no hurry to get back at Dennis and Amy.

As June waxed into July the orphans started talking about a summer outing, and Adriana grew curious enough to ask Tom what he knew. They were sitting in the attic, playing five card draw, betting with pennies Tom had stolen from Eric Whalley.

"Mrs. Cole takes us somewhere new every August," he said. "Last couple years it's been trips to the country, but we went to the beach once."

She frowned and asked, "How long have you been here?"

"All my life," Tom said dully. He shuffled the deck without touching it, then dealt the next hand. "My mother died giving birth to me at this orphanage. But I guess she hadn't planned to keep me even if she'd lived."

That was very sad, although Adriana supposed every orphan at Wool's had their own unfortunate story. Whatever differences separated them, they were all abandoned or left behind by someone.

Her cards were a mismatched mess with only an ace of hearts to commend them, so she checked Tom's bet of three pennies and discarded a deuce of clubs and six of diamonds.

"What about you?" he asked. "How'd you get here?"

 _Over years, then over night_ , she could have said.

(Adriana tried not to think of the bad thing she'd done. Or that it had amazed her, how _still_ a dead body could be. How perfectly, precisely motionless.)

"Same way everybody gets here," she said shortly.

Tom scowled and dealt her two new cards. A six of spades and deuce of diamonds. Naturally. "You don't got to be smart about it," he said. "I told you where I came from."

"You didn't come from anywhere," Adriana said, which was true, if unkind. "Not the same."

"What, you think you're better than me?" Tom asked, and his voice took on a sharp tone.

"Of course not," she said.

He drew another card and smiled in that self-satisfied way that made her want to slap him. "I bet five."

Adriana didn't especially feel like donating five more pennies to Tom Riddle. "Fold."

They played another hand, and as she dealt, he asked, deceptively casual, "Did your father beat you?"

She froze, felt a flush of anger and embarrassment heating her cheeks, because he was a mean and insensitive boy, yes, Adriana knew that, but sometimes the things he said and did still shocked her. "No. Was your mother really from the circus, like Billy said?"

Color rose high on his hollow cheeks, and Tom gave her a hard look, the sort that would have scared Adriana if she'd been much afraid of anything. "How would I know?" he asked coldly.

They didn't talk much for the rest of the day, nor the next week, but Adriana grew too bored on her own to hold a grudge any longer. Without apologizing or discussing the matter, she simply sat with Tom at dinner one evening and said, "Want to practice in my room?" to which he answered, "Sure," and that was that.

He did not ask about her past again.


	3. Terrible Things

**CHAPTER THREE**

 **Terrible Things**

 _1937_

* * *

Mrs. Cole took them to the little village of Crandall's Cliffs in the middle of August, and Tom knew as soon as he saw the place that this was where he would get his revenge on Dennis and Amy. He'd been waiting for the right moment, a way to get them somewhere far off and private, so that they wouldn't be heard and interrupted. _This is perfect._

It was a lovely day, the sky overhead bright and blue as a robin's egg, with fluffy clouds slowly drifting across its great expanse, as if they had all the time in the world. The air smelled strongly of salt and seaweed, the scents of the ocean carried from the water below to the cliff top above by the warm summer breeze.

"I need you to distract Mrs. Cole," Tom whispered to Adriana. "Just keep her busy so she doesn't notice me and Dennis and Amy are missing."

"Sure," she said. "Where are you taking them anyway?"

"Down the cliff. That'll be revenge enough, don't you think?"

Adriana gave him a measuring look. "You sure you can do that?"

"Yes. And if I got to I can always drop Dennis," he said, only half-joking. He wouldn't mourn Dennis a bit if the boy were to break his neck.

"Be careful," Adriana said. "And Tom…"

"Yes?"

"Don't get too carried away, all right?"

"I won't," he said, even though he didn't quite mean it.

* * *

She'd done her best to keep Mrs. Cole busy, stirring up a fight with Rachel and Ashleigh. But Dennis and Amy had been gone with Tom for nearly an hour, and Adriana knew that if they didn't come back soon, the matron would be bound to notice.

So she snuck away from the group and carefully approached the edge of the bluff. It was a sheer drop, at least a hundred feet. White-crested waves rushed against the rocks below, the low tide churning amidst boulders. Adriana stood at the precipice for a long while, and then she stepped off into thin air. She did not expect to fall, and so she didn't. Her own power cloaked her, protected her from gravity as she made the descent, but she could feel something else, an electrifying energy in the air— _Tom_.

She chased this feeling into the sea, like a fairytale girl following breadcrumbs. It was cold, and her clothes billowed about her, weighing her down as she treaded water. She felt along the rock face, not sure what she was looking for, until she came upon a fissure in the cliff. Adriana swam inside, found herself surrounded by darkness above and below, with nothing to guide her. The tunnel was narrow, no more than three feet wide, but she swam further, beckoned into the black.

And then she heard it: the faint echo of human screams, soft from this far away, but full of anguish, full of pain. The screaming grew louder the further she swam, punctuated by cries and pleas that went unanswered.

 _What are you doing, Tom?_

Light flickered up ahead, its golden glow reflected off the water and wet rock in a thousand sparkling shards, and she could see now that the tunnel opened on the left. Adriana swam faster, until she felt her breath coming short, until she reached the mouth of the cave. Steps were carved into the stone there, and she climbed them, out of the water and up into the cool, subterranean air. Shivering and panting, soaking clothes sticking to her body, Adriana stepped into the cave, and the sight she faced was one she would never forget.

Tom had conjured a fire somehow, blazing flames that were suspended in midair, and the scene unfolded before her in flickering shades of red and yellow. Amy and Dennis lay on the ground, writhing, screaming, and Tom stood before them, a look of unadulterated glee distorting his handsome face into something less human, almost bestial. His shadow loomed large on the cavern wall, dancing with the firelight, greater than the boy who had cast it.

"That's enough!" Adriana shouted, and Tom turned. His expression of pure, wild happiness turned to anger as quick as flipping a coin, heads to tails in a heartbeat.

"What are you doing here?" he asked. "I told you to—"

"I don't care what you told me," she said. "Let them go."

"Go away," he said. "This isn't your business."

Adriana pointed at the boy and girl on the ground. "Look at them. Look at what you've done."

Tom spared Amy and Dennis a cursory glance. "It's nothing they don't deserve."

She shook her head. "I'm taking them back up." Practicality might sway him more than appeals to his conscience, so she said, "Besides, Mrs. Cole is already looking for you lot."

Tom scowled, but he walked over to Amy and pulled her to her feet by the front of her dress. She stumbled and nearly fell, just barely managed to stay upright. Dennis he kicked in the ribs, and the older boy curled in on himself, sobbing. "Get up," Tom said, "or I'll make you." Dennis hurried to stand, and like Amy he was trembling all over, his broad face tear-streaked and splotchy.

"If Mrs. Cole asks where we were, you say we went exploring," he said. "Got it?"

"Y-yeah," Dennis said, his deep voice cracking. Amy nodded furiously and took hold of Dennis' hand.

They left the cave together, all four of them changed irrevocably by the things Tom had done.

* * *

Amy and Dennis never did say what happened in the cave. Mrs. Cole questioned them gently, then sharply, but they stuck to the story Tom had ordered them to tell.

Adriana didn't like what she'd seen of him that day. If not quite surprising, Tom's cruelty unsettled her. He was vindictive, quick-tempered, hateful, dishonest, and there was no limit to his malice once you earned his ire. What did it say of her that she felt drawn to him anyway? Tom might be all of those things, but he was also brave and brilliant and clever, and she had never met anyone like him.

Still, she tried to stay away from him after what he'd done to Amy and Dennis, to get a little space and think, but Tom didn't allow it. He came to her room at all hours of the day and night, sometimes with a toy he'd stolen off one of the other orphans, sometimes to show her a new skill he'd mastered. He sat with her at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and when Adriana told him plainly to leave her alone, he simply said, "No."

She wondered why he was putting forth so much effort to get her attention, but then Adriana realized she was his only friend, just as he was hers. He couldn't afford to give her up.

It wasn't his insistence that persuaded her to speak to him again, but rather the simple, strange reality that she cared for Tom Riddle and did not want to lose him.

So when he came to her room with a small-spined novel and offered to teach her to read, she said, "Fine, but you better not treat me like I'm stupid."

"I'd never," Tom said, "You're the smartest person I know. Well, besides me."

"That was almost nice," Adriana said. "Are you sick?"

"Shut up and listen." He opened the book and asked her to read it aloud, so he'd have some idea of what she already knew. Adriana stumbled through the sentences, guessing at half the words, and Tom stopped her after a few pages.

"You're trying to just remember the words on sight," Tom said. "That's what your problem is."

"What d'you mean? You've got to learn words to read."

"Yeah, but Mr. Caulfield says you learn words by figuring out their parts first—what they mean, how they sound…"

Tom didn't tell her anything much different than what their teacher explained, but he had a way of speaking that made her want to listen. He was surprisingly patient when she didn't understand, but mean if she acted obstinate or lazy. And he did something Mr. Caulfield hadn't thought to do: he gave her good reasons _why_ she should want to read.

"You can go to some other place," he said, "any place in the world that you want."

There was nothing else he might have said that would have appealed to her more.

"You're good at this. Teaching, I mean."

Tom smiled, and it couldn't be more unlike the gleeful grin she'd seen on his face in the cave; this expression was softer, it brought out the dimples in his cheeks, and if anything, it made him even better-looking than usual. "That's what I want to be someday. I'm gonna go to university and become a professor." He cocked his head to the side, as if trying to puzzle out something he'd never thought of before, and asked, "What about you? What will you be when you're grown up?"

"An explorer," Adriana said, without hesitation. "I want to go everywhere there is."

Tom nodded. "And I'll go with you when I'm on my summer hols."

Adriana smiled and held out her hand, and they shook on it.

Sometimes, when she was tired of struggling through a text, she'd hand the book over to Tom and just listen to him. He had a pleasant voice, neither deep nor high, and he read as fluently as he spoke, confident and precise with his words.

When they weren't reading or practicing with their powers, Tom and Adriana would often sneak out of Wool's and run around London together. They roved the streets, browsed books at the library, and stole from the candy shop. Adriana liked the red-hot jelly beans, how the almost painful bite of them amplified their sweetness. Tom said he didn't see how something hurtful could taste good, but then he didn't even care for candy, so what would he know about it? He traded his own sweets for all manner of things at the orphanage, and when someone refused to barter he bullied what he wanted out of them anyway.

The autumn flew by, a succession of ever-cooler days spent learning to read and exploring her own little corner of the city. Maybe because she'd spent the first ten years of her life largely confined to one room, Adriana found that she loved the freedom of wandering, the thrill of discovering new places.

She turned eleven on the tenth of November and rather expected the day to go by unremarked upon. But Tom woke her that morning with a rough shake and said, "Get up. I want to give you something."

Adriana yawned, sat up, and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. "Why?"

He gave her a look like she'd said something particularly slow. "Because it's your birthday, isn't it?"

"Yeah," she said, "but how d'you know that."

He shrugged. "I snuck into Mrs. Cole's office and looked at your file. Anyway, here you go."

Tom shoved the gift at her like he couldn't get rid of the thing quick enough. Adriana untied the little twine bow that held the newspaper wrapping all together and uncovered a mahogany jewelry box. It was highly polished, and some careful carpenter had carved vines and leaves into the wood. There was a look of almost-newness about the box, but when Adriana opened it, she found a few pieces of jewelry already inside: a brass brooch, colored glass earrings, and a silver chain. The necklace she recognized straightaway; Ashleigh Carlisle wore it all the time.

She knew Ashleigh came from a once-wealthy family because she never shut up about how it was just a matter of time before some rich uncle would come and take her home. Adriana wouldn't have believed a bit of Ashleigh's story, except that the girl did have a number of fine items from her life before coming to the orphanage. Her favorite thing to brag about was this very silver chain, which had once belonged to her mother.

"Ashleigh wouldn't have given this up without a fight," Adriana said. "What did you do to her?"

Tom frowned. "What does it matter? Don't you like it?"

Adriana had little interest in the jewelry, but she found the box itself to be beautiful. She traced the engraved vines with her finger. "I do."

"It's yours now," Tom said. "Don't worry 'bout how I got it."

She dumped the necklace, brooch, and earrings onto her bedspread. "All right, but give these back to Ashleigh. I don't want them."

Tom pocketed the jewelry and promised to return it. He started to leave, maybe to go talk to Ashleigh, but Adriana stopped him. "Thanks," she said. However he'd gone about doing it, he'd thought to give her a birthday present, and that was a luxury she hadn't expected to ever enjoy again.

Tom was many things, Adriana knew, but no one could accuse him of being predictable.

* * *

London had a grey Christmas, if not a white one. Sleet slicked the city streets all through the middle of December, and it was so miserably cold and wet that no one wanted to go outside. Tom spent most of his days with Adriana, huddled under blankets in the attic, turning matches into needles, playing games, and reading. It had almost surprised him, how quickly she picked up on the written word once she set her mind to learning, and these days she was coming to him with books as often as the other way around.

Come Christmas morning, she woke him by pulling off his covers and saying, "There's a decent breakfast for once, and we better go downstairs before the older boys eat it all."

Tom muttered complaints and derided the orphanage food, but he got up just the same. They went to the refectory together, took seats at the end of their usual table, and piled plates with fried eggs, bacon, and toast. Adriana ate as slowly and precisely as she always did, but for the first time since he'd met her she helped herself to seconds.

Some enterprising person had erected a small, scraggly evergreen in the main hall, strung popcorn and tinsel around it, and topped it with a painted star. Tom would have put money on the secret decorator being either Martha or Jamie, both of whom were shamelessly sentimental.

When he made fun of the tree, Adriana said, "I like it, even if it is a bit shoddy."

"It's a piece of rubbish wrapped in more rubbish."

She shrugged. "I really don't care what you say. I think it's nice."

"Don't tell me you like carols too?" Tom asked.

Adriana smiled and began to hum "Away in a Manger."

"Oh bloody hell," he said.

They spent the rest of the morning listening to Martha read from the Bible. Tom wouldn't have bothered (he found most of the stories in the Good Book to be both stupid and dull), but Adriana said that she was in the mood for a good fairytale, which made him snort. So he sat with her at the back of the group and whispered blasphemous jokes in her ear until they both erupted in laughter. Martha frowned, said they ought to search their souls if they found the birth of our Lord funny, and kicked them out.

"Did you see her face?" Tom asked, still laughing. "'Search our souls.'"

After disrupting Martha's Bible reading, he and Adriana played penny poker in his room. Tom lost spectacularly but refused to quit even when he ran out of money, and he bet a stick of gum on the next hand. He lost again, then sulked while Adriana gathered up her winnings.

"Gambling on Christmas Day," she said. "We're probably going to hell."

"Nobody's going to hell. There's no such thing."

"You really don't think so?" Adriana asked. "What happens to you after you die, then?"

Tom didn't like to think on that. "Nothing, I guess." He tried his best to sound casual instead of afraid, but by the odd, gentle look Adriana gave him he didn't think she believed his act.

That night, Tom lay on his back in bed, thinking about the emptiness that must follow death. The yawning absence of thought or feeling or existence. He closed his eyes against the darkness and tried to sleep, but he couldn't, not with this kind of fear twisting his stomach, because even if he was wrong and there was something _after_ , he didn't like to think what that might mean for him.

The door opened, creaking on rusted hinges, and Adriana slipped inside. Without even asking, she climbed into his bed and curled up next to him. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her to go away—because he did not, at this moment, feel like company—but then Tom saw the tear-tracks on her cheeks.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Nothing," Adriana said. She sniffled and wiped at her face. "It's stupid. I just had a bad dream."

"What was it about?" Tom asked, as curious as he was concerned. So little seemed to scare Adriana, and he couldn't imagine what might frighten her enough to make her cry.

"I don't want to talk about it," she said. "I just want to be here, with you."

Adriana reached out and took his hand, threaded their fingers together. Tom's first instinct was to pull away, because no one had ever touched him like this before, seeking comfort or giving it, and he didn't know what to do. But there was also something about the contact that he liked. Her hand was soft and slender, much smaller than his own, and yet they seemed to fit together, the way unalike puzzle pieces complement one another.

"Can I stay?" Adriana asked.

If they were caught like this Mrs. Cole would thrash them both, but since when had he worried about that old bat?

"Of course," Tom said. "Always."


	4. Ebony and Yew

**CHAPTER FOUR**

 **Ebony and Yew**

 _1938_

* * *

They were lying on their backs in the courtyard. Freshly-cut grass tickled Adriana's bare legs, and she could smell spring rain in the air. The sky above was a wan sort of blue, and the fluffy clouds (which they were idly finding shapes in) appeared fat and grey, heavy water-bearers ready to spill at any moment.

"That one's a wolf," Adriana said, pointing upward. "Don't you think?"

Tom shrugged. "I don't see it. I don't see anything but _clouds_."

"That's because you haven't got any imagination," she teased. "I'm bored. Let's get out of here."

"Fine with me," he said.

Tom and Adriana left Wool's, as they often did, and wandered the streets. Today they went down Vauxhall Road and stole bottles of milk from a horse-drawn cart. Adriana used her power to scale the nearest shop, a bakery, and took a seat on the roof. Tom followed her, and they sat side-by-side, legs dangling over the edge of the building. Passers-by below gaped up at them, and one plump, elderly lady with silver hair even called up, commanding them to climb back down.

Tom threw his empty milk bottle in her direction. The woman moved aside just in time to miss being hit, and the glass smashed on the cobblestones below. She huffed and cursed at him, then hurried on her way.

"You have a special way with people," Adriana said.

"Why should I care what some old cat thinks of me?" he asked, sneering.

Adriana finished drinking her own milk, then scooted backward, toward the middle of the roof, so that the people on the street couldn't see her. She concentrated on changing the shape of the bottle: it melted, like hot glass, except that it was still cool in her hands, and stretched out, becoming tall and skinny.

"Do it again," Tom said, moving closer. He watched her with that hungry expression he so often wore when he saw something he wanted. "Make it fat this time."

Adriana tried to transform the glass into a short, round shape, but suddenly she felt overwhelmed by her power. It welled up, seemed to fill every part of her with its potency, ready to burst from her like a storm from the rain-heavy clouds. She hugged herself, trying to hold everything in, but it was useless. There was a combustion of light and sound, she felt a great release of energy, and the milk bottle exploded into a thousand shining shards that flew in every direction.

Adriana was shivering, light-headed, and sick to her stomach. Emptied of her power as if someone had drained it from her. Tom stared, wide-eyed. Blood seeped from wounds on his cheeks and arms, where glass had cut him, and at the sight of all that red she panicked. Her breath came sharply, fast and staggered.

 _Not again, not again, not again…_

"Are you—are you all right?" she asked, between gasps.

Tom wiped his face and examined his own crimson-stained hand. "Yeah," he said, "I'm fine. But what was _that_?"

"I dunno," she said, a half-truth. "I guess I pushed too hard."

Tom looked at her like he didn't quite believe her.

They returned to the orphanage, and Mrs. Cole had a fit over the state of Tom's face. She ordered Martha and Jamie to clean him up, then rounded on Adriana, demanding to know what had happened. She was too shaken to think up a good lie, so she didn't say anything.

Mrs. Cole sighed, pinched the bridge of her nose, and said, "Just go."

Adriana hurried upstairs, but instead of going to Room 29 she went to number 27 and climbed into Tom's bed. She breathed in the clean scent of him that clung to his pillow and covered herself with the thin, grey blankets.

It had been a full year since an episode like this had happened, and Adriana closed her eyes against the memory of the last time she lost control. She'd thought it was over, these accidents, a part of her life forever locked away. Like the stuffed bear hidden under her bed (and why she'd brought the damn thing with her she couldn't say). Like the pain of a leather belt biting her skin, the ache of hunger twisting her starving stomach. Pieces of the past that Adriana had hoped would never touch her again.

* * *

In the weeks after the incident with the milk bottle, Adriana avoided practicing her powers with Tom. But no sooner than the cuts on his cheeks and arms were healed, he was hounding her to levitate books and transform marbles and train mice to tap dance. So she relented, as she always did when it came to this, too tempted by her own abilities not to exercise them.

Summer arrived abruptly, and it seemed every flower petal and blade of grass in London wilted under the white-hot sun's attention. A weatherman on the wireless reported that it was the hottest July in living memory, and Adriana felt inclined to believe him. She opened her window, trying to tempt a breeze inside, but it was fruitless. Apparently wind had disappeared for the season, same as rain. She tied back her long, unruly hair with a ribbon and was just on the verge of going to bother Tom, when someone knocked.

Adriana opened her door, and on the threshold of her room stood a tall, crooked-nosed man with smiling blue eyes. His flashy, plum-colored suit clashed spectacularly with his long auburn hair and beard. He was as ostentatiously out of place here in the colorless orphanage as an elephant on the streets of London.

"Who're you?" she asked.

"I am Professor Dumbledore," he said gently. "Might I join you for a moment?"

Wary, but curious about her visitor, Adriana stepped aside and said, "Yes."

Professor Dumbledore took a seat in a hard-backed chair (one of the many purposefully uncomfortable pieces of furniture that populated the orphanage), and gestured for Adriana to sit on her bed. She did, if suspiciously, and asked, "Why are you here?"

"To tell you that you have a place at Hogwarts, the school where I teach, should you wish to take it."

" _Hogwarts_? That's a funny name," she said. "And why would any school want me? I'm an awful student." Though she'd learned to read under Tom's tutelage, Adriana had missed too much early learning to ever write especially well, her spelling was nothing short of horrendous, and she found ciphering too dull to care about, if easy enough. Mr. Caulfield regularly promised to thrash her for not doing her homework—empty threats, those, which was all the better for him, as Adriana would never again suffer a whipping without putting up a fight.

"Hogwarts does not teach the sort of subjects you're thinking of. It is not a school for learning reading or arithmetic," said Professor Dumbledore. Here he paused and leaned conspiratorially close, as if about to reveal a most important secret. "Hogwarts is a school of magic."

 _Magic?_ That seemed both wrong and right at the same time, and it made a perfect and horrible sort of sense. Finally, she had a name besides _witchcraft_ for the ability that broke every natural law Adriana knew of. And yet, magic seemed too soft and kind a word to describe the awful things she and Tom could do. The awful things she had already done.

"So you'll teach me how to handle my magic?" she asked. "How to keep me from hurting myself, or anybody else?"

The slightest frown line appeared between Professor Dumbledore's eyebrows. "Have you used your magic to hurt people before?" he asked. His tone was firm, but not accusatory.

"Not on purpose," Adriana said, "but sometimes I can't help it."

As much as she loved to use her power—no, her magic, she must remember—she knew that she did not, like Tom, always have perfect mastery over it. Sometimes magic rose up inside of her—like that day on the roof of the bakery—and she had to fight to keep it down, to keep it in, or else it might burst from her. This had started when she was five or six, not long after Mother began punishing her so harshly, and it often happened after a beating. Adriana had only suffered the one episode since coming to Wool's over a year ago, but lately she could feel her magic almost boiling beneath her skin, dangerously eager to come out.

"That is not uncommon for inexperienced witches and wizards," Professor Dumbledore said carefully. "And to answer your question, yes, your teachers at Hogwarts will, among other things, show you how to control your magic."

"Then I would very much like to come," Adriana said. "Have you already talked to Tom?"

"Yes, I have." Professor Dumbledore smiled, but she thought there was something rather forcibly light about it. Perhaps his meeting with her friend had not gone very well.

Professor Dumbledore gave her a yellowed parchment envelope, its wax seal stamped in the shape of four animals framing a fancy letter H. She could make out a snake and a lion, but the other two figures were too indistinct for her to identify. Adriana broke the seal, and as she read over the letter inviting her to Hogwarts, Professor Dumbledore handed her a small leather purse full of coins and began explaining about the train to school, which she should catch from Platform 9 ¾ (she had to ask him to repeat that to believe it), and a place called Diagon Alley, where she would be able to find all of her supplies.

"I would be happy to take you today," he said.

Adriana shook her head. "You haven't got to. We can manage on our own."

Professor Dumbledore looked at her oddly, half-appraising and half-concerned. "Why are you so sure that Tom refused my offer as well?"

She shrugged. "Because I know him."

Professor Dumbledore held out his hand, which Adriana took after a moment's hesitation. "Well then," he said, "I shall see you again on the first of September."

* * *

"I didn't like him," Tom said. "He set my wardrobe on fire! And he's making me give back all my things."

"You mean everyone else's things," Adriana said, and the corner of her mouth twitched like she was holding back a smile.

Tom frowned. "It isn't funny. And we need to turn here. Dumbledore said the Leaky Cauldron's right round this corner."

There was a big bookshop, a grimy pub, a clothing store—Adriana grabbed his arm, stopping him, and said, "There, that's it."

He'd been expecting something larger and grander, a place worthy of housing the entrance to the magical world. Not a dirty old tavern that looked like it had seen its glory days a few centuries ago. Irritated and somewhat let down, Tom followed Adriana into the Leaky Cauldron. _Perhaps it's only bewitched to look like rubbish on the outside…_ His hope that the interior would be finer was quickly dashed. The pub was dimly lit, the furniture dilapidated, the floor in need of sweeping.

They approached the bartender, a robust man in his prime with thin brown hair, a long face, and rather prominent front teeth. _He looks like a horse_ , Tom thought uncharitably.

"We need help getting through to Diagon Alley," Adriana said.

"Ah, first-years," said Tom-horseface. He smiled at them. "Follow me, then. Now where are your parents?"

"We're orphans," said Tom shortly.

"Oh… er, sorry." He led them to a small, weedy courtyard and tapped the wall there three times with his wand. The last brick he'd touched shook in place, shivered, and a tiny hole appeared. It widened, grew larger and larger, like a great yawning mouth, until an archway stood before them. Tom hurried through it, away from the bartender who shared his name, onto a winding cobblestone lane.

The Leaky Cauldron may have been disappointing, but Diagon Alley was everything he could have hoped for and more. Shops lined the street, selling everything from cauldrons to owls to spellbooks. He saw barrells of beetle's eyes, vials of dragon's blood, quills that wrote by themselves, and all manner of strange beasts through the windows of the Magical Menagerie.

The people were no less foreign to Tom's eyes, men and women dressed in antiquated clothes and long robes. One little witch in a pointed hat shepherded a passel of ginger-haired brats, complaining to nobody in particular about the cost of cauldrons this year. An old wizard walked by after her, wearing an outfit that would not have been out of place on an eighteenth century dandy. He was walking a perfectly ordinary jack russell terrier—or so Tom thought, until he got a look at the creature's forked tail.

Adriana stopped at the apothecaryto look at the unicorn horn on display by the door. Then she pointed to a store called Quality Quidditch Supplies, where a group of teenagers were huddled, staring through the window at—

"Flying broomsticks," Adriana said. "Can you believe that?"

"Barely." Tom pulled his school supplies list from his pocket and reread the items. Then he thought of Dumbledore, setting his wardrobe ablaze with a fire that didn't burn. "Let's get our wands before anything else."

Finding the right place was easy enough. It was a skinny, sharp-eaved little shop, and the shiny gold letters across the top of the door proclaimed the Ollivander family wandmakers since before Christ was born, a claim Tom couldn't quite swallow. He and Adriana stepped inside and discovered a spare space with no decoration, quiet and dark. Shelves lined the walls, stacked with boxes from floor to ceiling, giving the little shop a closed-in, claustrophobic feeling. Sunlight drifted in through the window, gilding motes of dust that were caught in its rays, so that they looked like glowing fireflies. To Tom's surprise, Adriana took a seat in the lone chair and said, "You go first."

He wasn't about to argue. "All right."

The proprietor stepped forward, a man in his late twenties with dark hair, a thin mouth, and silvery eyes near as pale as Adriana's. "Morning," said Ollivander. "Let's get started, shall we?"

A tape measure floated over, unrolled itself, and spanned the distance between Tom's left shoulder and the floor.

"Which is your wand arm?"

"My right," Tom said, and the tape swiveled around to measure him from elbow to wrist, shoulder to fingertip, around his head, and about his chest. As it worked, Ollivander explained that each wand in his shop had its core made from either a phoenix feather, unicorn hair, or dragon heartstring.

"Which is the strongest?" Tom asked.

"Mm, depends upon what you mean by strength. Unicorn hairs are greatly resistant to the Dark Arts, phoenix feathers are the most difficult to tame—not unlike the creature they come from—and dragon heartstrings tend to be the most powerful."

"I want one of them," Tom said. "The dragon kind."

Ollivander shook his head, snagged the tape measure from thin air, pocketed it, and began pulling narrow boxes from the shelves, seemingly at random. "What's your name, boy?"

"Tom Riddle."

"The wand chooses the wizard, Mr. Riddle, not the other way around." He handed Tom a wand and said, "Aspen and phoenix feather, twelve inches, rigid."

He waved the wand in the precise manner he'd seen Dumbledore adopt when he set fire to the wardrobe, but before he could determine whether he liked this one or not, Ollivander had grabbed it from him and said, "Not quite. Unless I'm greatly mistaken, aspen's martial nature suits you, but we can find a better fit. Try this: mahogany, dragon heartstring, eleven inches, pliable."

Tom had barely lifted this one before the wandmaker tutted, snatched it away, and said, "No, no, much too flexible for you…"

If Ollivander took one more wand out of his hand before he was ready to give it up, Tom might not be able to keep himself from blasting the man out of his own store.

"Here. Yew, phoenix feather, thirteen-and-a-half inches, unyielding."

Tom didn't need Ollivander to tell him that this was the right one. The yew felt, somehow, inexplicably and perfectly _his_. Warmth spread up along his arm, and when he waved the wand, the whole of this rickety little shop shook, and a few boxes fell from the dusty shelves.

"Ah," said Ollivander. "That's an unusual wand you have there, Mr. Riddle. Yew is among the more uncommon magical woods, and phoenix feather is the rarest core type. I've never had occasion to sell this particular combination before. And it should be powerful—very powerful, I expect."

Tom smiled and asked, "How much for it?"

"Seven Galleons." Ollivander placed the wand back in its box, took Tom's money, and turned to Adriana. "Now for you, miss."

Tom expected Ollivander to find a wand for Adriana as swiftly as he'd discovered the yew for him, but it became evident quickly enough that this was not to be so. She tried wands made of walnut, spruce, poplar, pine, and sycamore, ranging from swishy to inflexible and seven inches to fourteen, with cores of every kind. She had barely touched a dogwood and phoenix feather wand when it emitted a loud bang and a jet of flames.

"Good grief, not this one." Ollivander took the dogwood wand and returned it to its case. Then he walked around Adriana and said, "You're a contradictory girl. So slight in build, yet you have the air of a dramatic magic user about you. And I would say dragon heartstring suits you best, for certain, except that those are most temperamental, and I suspect you might need a bit more stability in your wand."

"What's best for keeping control?" Adriana asked.

"Oh, undoubtedly unicorn hair, but they don't have the kind of power you need, Miss Sharrow. Cherry and dragon heartstring would make a potent, although dangerous, pair, but if you have concerns about control, then it will never do."

Thirty minutes later, and they'd still had no luck. Adriana tried so many different wands that even the calm, mysterious Ollivander seemed to grow frustrated. "Ten years I've run this shop," he said. "Ten years, and in all this time I've never come across a customer so difficult."

"Sorry," she said, sounding not very sorry at all.

Tom sniggered, and Adriana shot him a hateful look that promised future retribution.

"Something must give," Ollivander muttered. "Try this ebony. Good for dueling and Transfiguration. Dragon heartstring core, twelve inches, reasonably supple."

Adriana pointed it at the paperweight on the counter, and it transformed into a rat, which scurried away. "I like this one," she said. "It feels more right than the others."

"Not a perfect match, I'm afraid," said Ollivander. "You may have to exercise special caution as you get to know your wand, and as it gets to know you, but still, I think it will serve you well."

"Finally," said Tom. He stood and stretched, feeling awfully stiff after sitting in that spindly chair for over an hour. "Took you long enough."

"Oh, shut up," Adriana said, as she handed over her seven gold Galleons to Ollivander. "You just got lucky."

Much later, back at the orphanage, Tom took his yew wand from its box and gave it an experimental wave. Luck, he thought, had very little to do with it. This wand was meant to be his, and he promised himself that with it, he would do incredible things.


	5. The First of September

**CHAPTER FIVE**

 **The First of September**

 _1938_

* * *

The Hogwarts Express gleamed scarlet under the late summer sunlight, emitting billowing clouds of steam. Students crowded Platform 9 ¾, saying goodbye to families and hello to friends. The noise of animals (hooting owls and croaking toads and meowing cats) intertwined with the children's sentimental reunions and farewells, creating a cacophony of discordant sounds. A calico kitten jumped onto Adriana's trunk, stretched, then cocked its fluffy head and looked at her with curious orange eyes. When she reached out to pet it, the kitten hissed and scratched her hand, its claws just sharp enough to draw blood.

Tom laughed, and Adriana shot him the foulest look she could muster. Then she picked up the kitten by the scruff of its neck and dumped it on the ground. "C'mon," she said, "Let's go."

The carriages near the front of the train were already full, mostly with older students who'd arrived early enough to get the best seats. Adriana had hoped for an empty compartment, but the best they could find was one near the back, where a handful of first-years were already sitting.

Tom marched inside without asking if anyone minded, forward as ever, and claimed a spot by the window. Adriana sat next to him and poked him in the ribs. "Who says you get the window seat, eh?"

"You didn't ask if you could join us," said a frowning, freckled boy.

"Is this your train?" Tom asked, sounding politely puzzled.

The freckled boy blinked stupidly.

"No?" Tom asked, all innocence. "Then I don't need your permission, do I?"

Another boy sniggered. He was sandy-haired and blue-eyed, neither handsome nor plain, with a too-pointy nose but a smile that made up for it. "I'm Grayson Avery," he said. "What's your name?"

"Tom Riddle."

"And you?" Grayson asked.

"Adriana Sharrow," she said.

The other children introduced themselves: there was Ignatius Prewett, the red-headed, freckled boy Tom had cheeked; Alphard Black, a good-looking, quiet, bookworm sort; and Celeste Lestrange, a very pretty girl with long dark hair.

"I don't know the name Riddle," said Ignatius, "nor Sharrow. You parents _were_ wizards, weren't they?"

"No idea," said Tom. "We're orphans, the both of us."

Tom's heritage might be a mystery to him, but Adriana knew well and good that her parents had been Muggles. From Ignatius's tone she could guess that such a revelation wouldn't win her any friends in this compartment.

"They could be _Mudbloods_ ," said Ignatius.

Alphard rolled his eyes. "Or they could be Merlin's great-great-great-grandchildren. Who cares?"

"You better care," Ignatius said, "or at least pretend to. Elsewise your sister will skin you alive."

Alphard looked up from his book to say, "I'm not afraid of Walburga."

Grayson laughed. "You're the only one then, mate. She's bloody terrifying."

Adriana tuned out the conversation circulating around (and conspicuously ignoring) her and Tom. She opened her trunk and withdrew the secondhand copy of _Hogwarts: A History_ that she'd purchased in Diagon Alley—a choice that dashed the hope of buying new robes, but she would pick a good book over pretty things to wear any day—and turned to the pages about the Hogwarts Founders and Houses. She'd read this part at least three times already, but with the school only a few hours away, Adriana wanted to consider her options again.

Hufflepuff she had no interest in. Fairness and justice were the stuff of storybooks, only nobody told you that, and a House dedicated to those principles sounded at best naive and at worst downright foolish. Ravenclaw appealed to her more. She'd been a truly terrible student at the orphanage, but Adriana knew she was more intelligent than most, and as much as she hated homework, she wanted to learn all about magic that she could. Nonetheless, she suspected it was either Gryffindor or Slytherin that she would be sorted into.

 _Hogwarts, A History_ quite irritatingly failed to explain exactly _how_ one's House was chosen, and so she closed the book and asked the chattering children in her carriage about it.

Celeste said, "Sorry, I don't know. My brother wouldn't even give me a clue."

"Walburga told me there's a test of some kind," said Alphard, "but she was probably lying."

"Doesn't matter how we're sorted," said Grayson, "it's Slytherin for me. Averys have worn the green and silver for centuries."

"Didn't you have a cousin in Hufflepuff?" Celeste asked.

Grayson blushed a splotchy pink and said, "Third cousin, and she's not an Avery anymore. She married a Weasley, if you can believe it."

Adriana couldn't guess who the Weasleys were, and didn't care; she returned to _Hogwarts: A History_.

"At least the Weasleys are pure-blood," Celeste said.

Ignatius snorted. "Blood-traitors you mean, carrying on with Mudbloods and Muggles…"

Talk turned back to Houses as the train ate up the distance between London and Hogwarts, and Grayson asked Tom where he thought he'd end up.

"Slytherin," Tom said, without a moment's hesitation.

"You sound certain," said Ignatius.

"I am. It's the House for greatness, isn't it?"

"And _you're_ great?" Ignatius asked.

Tom smiled sharply. "We'll find out soon enough, won't we?"

* * *

The sun had set while they rode the Hogwarts Express. Now the sky was a deep indigo dotted with stars, and Tom could just make out Orion. He followed the groundskeeper down a steep, forested hill, staying straight on the dirt path. At the bottom, it wound suddenly to the left, then opened onto the edge of a vast lake. It looked like nothing so much as a great mirror, moonlight glimmering silver-bright off the still surface. And on the far side of the waters, resting on a clifftop, its golden windows shining like lanterns in the night, stood a castle.

Tom had witnessed a great deal of ugliness in his life and very little good. Hogwarts, even cloaked by darkness, was easily the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. Without quite knowing why, he reached for Adriana and laced their fingers together, same as she'd done last Christmas when she came to his room, hoping to hide from her nightmares.

Thirty or forty boats lined the shore, and Tom had to let go of Adriana for her to claim her seat in the nearest one. The loss of contact was startling, and he hurried to take his place next to her, to grasp her hand again. He knew, somehow, that he would remember everything about this moment for the rest of his life: the smells of lake water and pine and vespertine blossoms; the sunset-song of chirping crickets; the illuminated castle windows, bright as beacons, beckoning its students; and most of all, the feel of Adriana next to him, impossibly warm and vibrantly alive.

The boats moved forward of their own accord, like a little navy on a freshwater sea. They drew closer and closer to the cliff upon which Hogwarts perched, and then they went through it, into a pitch black tunnel. He was being carried to a place where he would finally belong, and even though he couldn't see his destination, Tom knew it would be more a home than the orphanage had ever been.

They came to a stop, and a hundred-odd children clambered out of their boats onto a pebbled, subterranean harbor. The groundskeeper snapped at them to hurry, and they all followed him through a passageway that led to the green lawn around the castle itself, then up a flight of stairs to a great, wooden door. _This is it_ , Tom thought. _We're finally here_.

The door opened, and a small, white-haired witch said, "I am Professor Merrythought. Come with me."

The first-years scrambled inside. Flaming torches cast a ruddy glow about the entrance hall, which was larger and grander than anything Tom had ever seen. Professor Merrythought welcomed them to Hogwarts, gave a brief speech on the four Houses and the Sorting ceremony, and told them to line up. She opened the double doors to the right, and they marched inside.

Four long tables dominated the Great Hall, full of students that were turning in their seats to get a better look at the new class. Hundreds of candles floated in midair, their flickering light illuminating the faces of the children below and shining off the golden plates and goblets. There were _ghosts_ sitting at each of the tables, like people made of mist, and Tom thought of a dozen questions as soon as he saw them. What was it like to die? Did they know what happened after? Had they seen a heaven or hell and turned back from it?

Then he glanced upward and saw that the vaulted ceiling had indeed been enchanted to look like the sky above, just as Adriana's dog-eared copy of _Hogwarts, A History_ had promised. A thousand stars shone down on them, their constellations bright and watchful.

Professor Merrythought led the first-years to the front of the hall, facing the whole school, the teachers' table behind their backs. It was then that Tom noticed the pointed hat sitting on a three-legged stool. It was patched, frayed, and dirty, utterly ordinary except for its poor condition—until a tear near the brim opened, and the hat began to sing, inviting students to try it on, praising Gryffindor's courage, Hufflepuff's fairness, Ravenclaw's wit, and Slytherin's ambition.

When it finished, Professor Merrythought read off the name, "Allbright, Imogene," from her long scroll of parchment, and a skittish-looking girl stepped forward. She bit her lip and squeezed her eyes shut as Professor Merrythought put the Sorting Hat on her head. Ten seconds passed, twenty, thirty, and then the Hat shouted, "HUFFLEPUFF!" Imogene scurried over to the Hufflepuff table, and an older boy wearing a silver badge patted her on the back, smiling.

Tom had never hated his name so much as in this moment, when Riddle relegated him to the back of the line. He watched the children he'd met on the train get sorted before him: the hat placed Grayson, Alphard, and Celeste into Slytherin, but Ignatius went to Ravenclaw. _Good_. He hadn't fancied sharing a room with that prat anyhow.

Fitzgerald Raleigh and Willow Randall were both Gryffindor, and then Professor Merrythought called out, "Riddle, Tom."

He strode over to the professor, took a seat on the stool, and waited to be sorted. It didn't take long; the hat had barely touched his head when it screamed, "SLYTHERIN!"

Tom rose, grinning, and joined the cheering table, where Grayson and Alphard made room for him.

There were only five children with names between Riddle and Sharrow, and then it was Adriana's turn. Tom expected it to take only a moment for her to be sorted—she was, after all, nearly as talented as him—but the hat deliberated for a full minute, then another, and another.

 _Slytherin, Slytherin, Slytherin. She belongs here. She belongs with me._

An older girl, perhaps sixth- or seventh-year, looked at her watch and whispered, "That's over five minutes. She's a Hatstall."

Finally, the Sorting Hat opened its mouth and shouted, "GRYFFINDOR!"

Adriana shrugged in Tom's direction, as if to say, "Oh, well," and made her way to her House table.

He paid little attention to the rest of the ceremony, too busy staring across the Great Hall at Adriana. She wasn't facing him, so he only had a view of her long, mahogany curls. _Look at me_ , Tom thought, but she didn't turn around.

Once "York, Persephone" was sorted into Ravenclaw, Headmaster Dippet stood and said, "Welcome, new students, and to those of you returning, welcome back…" He spoke about the Founders' legacy, their dream of a school united, a dream fulfilled by each new class to walk the halls of Hogwarts.

"Oh, I wish he'd shut it," Grayson whispered to Tom. "I'm starving."

Dippet droned on and on, then finally sat down.

A feast appeared on the table with a suddenness that almost shocked Tom. There were platters of roast beef, lamb, ham, and chicken. Bowls of buttery creamed potatoes, tureens of gravy. Shepherd's pie, pork pies, steak and kidney pie. Split pea soup and squash casserole. Treacle tart, apple cake, blackberry cobbler, flummery, and trifle. Tom had never seen so much food in his life, and he didn't know where to start.

"I can't believe Ignatius wasn't sorted Slytherin," Grayson said, around a bite of chicken.

Celeste wrinkled her pretty little nose and said, "Don't talk with your mouth full. Makes you look like a Mudblood."

"What is that anyway?" Tom asked.

"A witch or wizard with _Muggles_ for parents," Celeste said. "They're not as magically talented as us, though. They really shouldn't be allowed to come to Hogwarts at all, if you ask me."

Grayson nodded. "And they're so ignorant about our world, it takes them ages to catch up—" He stopped abruptly and threw Tom an apologetic look. "No offense to you, of course."

Tom made himself smile. "None taken."

Celeste took a dainty sip of pea soup, swallowed, and said, "You can't be a Mudblood anyway. I'd have been able to tell if you were."

Alphard snorted, and Celeste asked, "What? You don't believe me?"

"Muggle-borns look just like everybody else," Alphard said. "There's no way to tell them apart from half-bloods or pure-bloods."

Another boy turned around and frowned at Alphard. He looked so strikingly like Celeste—same black hair and blue eyes and straight, even features—that he had to be her older brother. "You're starting to sound like a blood-traitor, Black."

"I'm not," Alphard said. "Just stating facts."

Tom ate roast beef and potatoes and listened, curious to learn about the hierarchy of Hogwarts. Alphard continued to argue with the Lestranges until a tall girl with hawkish eyes and a waist-length braid got up, walked over, and twisted his ear.

"Ow! Walburga!" Alphard said. "What was that for?"

"For talking like a Muggle-lover," she hissed. "If I hear that trash from you again I'll hex you into next week."

Walburga released her little brother and returned to her seat.

"Sorry," Celeste said to Alphard. "I didn't mean to get you in trouble with your sister."

Alphard rubbed his ear. "Don't worry about it. Walburga's always mad about something."

After dinner, a prefect led the Slytherin first-years to their common room. Portraits lined the walls, and Tom nearly tripped when he saw that the pictures' occupants were _moving_ , talking and laughing and darting between one another's frames. As astonishing as that was, he kept his face carefully blank and followed the group down into the dungeons. The prefect stopped before a perfectly average stretch of bare wall and said, " _Twenty-eight_." A door hidden in the stone slid open, and the first-years pushed and shoved one another in their hurry to get inside the common room.

The Slytherin quarters were dim and chilly, and green lamps hung from chains, casting a gloomy sort of emerald light. Still, there was a certain dark glamour to the room. Beyond the stained glass windows Tom could see creatures swimming: fish and, more ominously, humanoid figures that disappeared too quickly for him to examine. The furniture was ebony and black leather, all expertly crafted. He counted no less than three chessboards sitting about, although he couldn't guess what appeal a Muggle game held for wizards. A fire burned in the grate, but its golden warmth seemed out of place, an element that did not quite belong here under the lake.

The Slytherin dormitories descended even further beneath the ground, and Tom's own room was on the sixth floor down, almost at the very bottom. His trunk had already been brought up and placed at the foot of a four-poster bed, a handsome construction of dark wood and green silk hangings. His roommates—Grayson, Alphard, and three other boys whose names he didn't yet know—all proclaimed themselves stuffed and exhausted. Tom felt wide awake, much too excited to be tired, but he changed into his pajamas (grey and plain, like all the other clothes he owned, besides his school robes) and slipped beneath the silver-embroidered covers just the same.

He lay on his back and listened to the lake water lapping against the windows, a soothing sound, but apparently not soothing enough, because he couldn't fall asleep. Tom wondered where Adriana was in the castle. For the first time since he met her, he had no idea where she might be, and this bothered him. Since Christmas, they'd made a habit of slipping into one another's rooms at night, sometimes to stay up late talking, sometimes just to sleep, and he'd counted on having the same luxury at Hogwarts. Tom resolved to get the location of the Gryffindor quarters out of Adriana on the morrow, whether he had to bully, bribe, or charm it from her.

He got out of bed and wandered upstairs to the common room. A few of the older students lingered by the hearth, playing some sort of exploding card game. The Slytherin ghost, whom Tom had heard a prefect refer to as the Bloody Baron, hovered by one of the windows, watching the fish drift by. He approached the ghost and asked, "What happens after you die?"

The Baron didn't even look away from the window. "At least try to butter me up first," he said, "before you ask me such an unoriginal question."

Tom scowled. "Oh come off it. Just answer me."

"Can't."

Tom took a steadying breath, trying to reign in his temper. "What do you mean you can't? You're dead aren't you?"

"Very astute," said the Baron dryly. "Yes, boy, I'm dead."

"Then you must know what happens after all of this—" Tom gestured widely with both hands, "is gone."

The ghost sniffed. "Well, I don't."

"Tell the truth," Tom said, and it took every bit of his self-control not to scream it.

The Baron looked at him for the first time. "I know what you want from me, but I can't give it to you. If I could, I wouldn't be here."

Before he could interrogate the ghost further, the Baron drifted across the common room, then through a wall back into the dungeons.

Tom turned away, disappointed, with only more questions and no answers at all.


	6. Hogwarts

**CHAPTER SIX**

 **Hogwarts**

 _1938_

* * *

"No," Adriana said flatly. "I'm not telling you where my common room is, or how to get into it."

Tom had waited in the entrance hall for ten minutes, hoping to catch her before breakfast, and now she wouldn't even listen to him.

"Oh, come on." He smiled as winningly as he could. "We never keep things from each other."

Adriana snorted. "You lie as easy as breathing, don't you?"

"I'll tell you how to get into Slytherin," Tom said, voice low.

"Doubtful," she said. "Now move, I'm hungry."

He followed her into the Great Hall. "I'll just figure it out on my own," Tom warned.

"You do that." Adriana took a seat at the end of the Gryffindor table and helped herself to a goblet of pumpkin juice.

Tom found Grayson and Alphard sitting with Celeste's older brother, whose first name he learned was Adrastos. He helped himself to a plate of eggs and sausages, deliberately skipping the porridge (which he could never eat again and it would still be too soon). The boys talked around him more than to him, which irritated Tom. He didn't like being ignored, but short of interjecting himself into a conversation about magical sports that he only half understood, there wasn't much he could do about it.

His first class was Transfiguration with the Ravenclaws. He got lost when the staircases changed and turned him in the entirely wrong direction. Last night, he'd thought the moving stairs were spectacular, but now as he ran through the corridors, already tardy and growing later still, he decided they were more annoying than anything else.

By the time he found the class, Professor Dumbledore was in the middle of demonstrating inanimate to animate Transfiguration by changing a goblet into a rat, and Tom's interruption drew every eye in the room.

"Good of you to join us, Tom," said Dumbledore.

He couldn't quite tell whether the professor was being serious or sarcastic, but Tom took a seat at the front of the room and said, "I'm sorry I'm late. I got lost."

Dumbledore smiled gently and said, "Understandable. Hogwarts is a tricky place to navigate, even for those of us who have called the castle home for many years. Just the same, perhaps you ought to leave earlier if you want to make it to class on time."

Tom nodded, said, "Yes, sir," and pulled out his copy of _A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration_. He'd already read the book cover to cover, but studying magical theory and seeing it in practice were quite different.

Dumbledore returned to his demonstration, transforming the sleek, grey rat back into a silver goblet. Tom watched hungrily, ready to try it himself, so he was disappointed when Dumbledore distributed matchsticks to everyone in the class and told them to change them into needles. He had done this kind of work wandless at the orphanage a hundred times before, and he accomplished the task on his first attempt.

"Wow," said Celeste, who was seated to his right. "How'd you do that so easily?"

"Dunno," said Tom, shrugging. "It just comes naturally."

"Well I'm jealous," said Celeste, but she was smiling all the same. "Care to help me?"

Tom never passed up an opportunity to show off, so he pushed his desk closer to Celeste's and talked her through the process. How the magic wasn't in the words at all, really, but just inside of you, and you had to bring it out. To force your will onto the obstinate matchstick until you convinced it to be something else.

"I did it!" Celeste said. Her needle was a little thick and somewhat dull, but it was certainly a needle nonetheless.

Tom made himself smile, as if he much cared about her success.

Things would be different here than at the orphanage, he'd already decided. He wouldn't spend another seven years hated and ridiculed, not if he could help it. Tom intended to get ahead, and in order to do that, he was going to have to hide the parts of himself that people didn't like.

* * *

Tom was different. When he was not with her, he spent all of his time with his Housemates, and after Ignatius made fun of the way he talked, he began to imitate his peers' refined speech. Gryffindors and Slytherins shared Potions and Defense Against the Dark Arts together, and his behavior in class and out of it couldn't be any more different than the way he acted at the orphanage. He was kind and respectful toward teachers and students, always quick to help anyone struggling with their coursework, and his general demeanor was brighter, more friendly.

Adriana hated it.

This wasn't the Tom she knew. He was studiously crafting a facade to hide his true self behind, and Adriana couldn't understand why. Did he care so much about what other people thought? She'd never gotten the impression that Tom gave a damn about anyone's opinion apart from his own (and occasionally hers).

So, one Saturday when they were exploring the castle together, hurrying along the corridors and up staircases, stopping to look into new rooms or check behind tapestries for secret passageways, she asked, "Why are you pretending to be someone you're not?"

Tom opened a heavy wooden door and peeked inside. "Nothing in here but old broomsticks," he said. "Let's carry on."

She followed him to a tapestry of a witch playing a lute.

"Are you going to answer my question?" Adriana asked.

"Not in the middle of the hall where anyone could hear, I'm not." Tom lifted the tapestry, said, "Well, look at this," and disappeared behind it.

Adriana followed him inside and found a lovely music room. There were instruments of all kinds, an upright piano and cases full of horns and woodwinds. Other than this fine display, the room boasted only a grate, currently empty of fire, and a blue velvet couch.

Tom took a seat at the piano and tried his hand at playing whatever song was printed on the music sheet. The sound was halting and clumsy, if not utterly awful, but Adriana said, "I suggest you stick to magic."

He scowled at her and said, "I'd like to see you do any better."

"Not going to happen." Adriana remembered with sudden clarity the sharp sting of her mother's hand across her cheek the last time she sat at a piano. She'd grown tired of Mum's criticism and in a fit of temper used a little magic to improve the grace of her playing. Her mother hadn't liked that, not one bit.

 _Don't think about those things._

"Well?" Adriana asked, forcing herself to stay in the present, not to cringe at the shadow of memory. "Why are you putting on such a show?"

Tom said, "It's simple: I want to do well here, to succeed, and I can't manage that if everyone hates me."

"I don't understand why you care so much," she said.

"I'm ambitious, or didn't my two-second Sorting already tell you that?" Tom asked smugly.

Adriana smiled, took a seat on the soft couch, and said, "I had a clue before your Sorting."

"Why did yours take so long anyway?" he asked. Tom remained on the piano bench, idly striking lone keys for the fun of making noise, she supposed.

"The Hat couldn't decide between Slytherin and Gryffindor," she said.

"Well it chose wrongly," Tom said. "You belong in Slytherin."

 _With me_ , he didn't say, but she heard it all the same.

Adriana shook her head. "No, the Hat was right."

She missed being able to sneak into Tom's room at night, to know where he was most of the time because they shared their own small world. But she loved the warmth of her tower and enjoyed the company of her Housemates more than she had liked any of the children at the orphanage (apart from Tom). The other Gryffindors could be reckless, but Adriana didn't hold that against them, because she was guilty of the same.

* * *

His first months at Hogwarts passed swiftly, full of exploration and study. Tom managed to insinuate himself among the pure-blood children, and he learned as much about the wizarding world from them as he did from his professors. Celeste was quick to explain the particulars of blood purity, and Alphard gave him a lesson on the political storm at the Ministry. A tug-of-war between the old way—"Supremacy for the supreme," as Adrastos put it—and the new—calls for greater equality for Mudbloods.

The ambiguity of Tom's heritage put him in a nebulous place within their circle. He could be anything, so befriending him was a gamble. Celeste was the warmest toward him, and he used that to work his way in with her older brother. Once Adrastos approved of him, most of the others fell in line. His own skills quickly earned the admiration, if not the respect, of most of his Housemates, but there were some, like Alphard's older sister Walburga, who disliked him regardless and weren't afraid to show it.

Tom quickly learned that there was a hierarchy in Slytherin, a ladder of sorts, with each rung a social position dependent upon talent, breeding, and social graces. He had magical skill in spades, and he discovered that when he put his mind to it, it was easy to play the games of politics and gossip that the pure-bloods seemed to thrive on.

Life outside of his House remained endlessly fascinating to Tom. Hogwarts was a maze of secret passages, changing staircases, trick steps, and doors that weren't doors at all, but rather solid walls just pretending. But nothing compared to learning magic, exerting his will over the natural order of things until they changed at his command.

Still, to Tom's disappointment, the coursework in his classes remained startlingly easy. He had hoped for more of a challenge when he came to Hogwarts, and he refused to wait years to learn anything difficult. Adriana, he knew, was having much the same problem. Her magic was as strong as his own, if less refined, and beneath the veneer of her poor education, she was ruthlessly intelligent. So they began going to the library to read texts meant for third- and fourth-year students. Tom was strictly interested in spellwork, learning new charms and jinxes, but Adriana spent as much time reading magical theory as its practical counterpart.

"I don't know why you bother with that," he said. "Knowing why a Summoning spell works won't help you cast it."

"It's interesting," Adriana said, as she turned a page of Hypagea Smith's _Arithmancy Unraveled_. "Don't you ever want to know something just for the sake of knowing it?"

"Of course not," Tom said. "I want to know something so that I can _use_ it."

She smiled, as if his answer was perfectly predictable. And perhaps it was, because Tom didn't care for anything that had no utility he could take advantage of. The only exception to this was Adriana herself, because he'd come to learn quickly enough that she couldn't be manipulated.

On the day after Halloween, Slughorn asked both of them to join his Slug Club, a clique comprised only of Hogwarts' best and brightest. (At least, this was how their professor pitched the invitation.) Tom agreed right away and encouraged Adriana to do the same.

"It's stupid," she said, once their potions master was out of earshot.

"But it could help us. Do you have any idea how many important people Slughorn knows?" Tom asked.

"Fine, I'll be a member of the Slug Club," Adriana said. "But only because I like Slughorn. He's a good teacher—although he'd be better for the rest of the class if he didn't favor us so much."

It was true. Slughorn constantly bragged about their skills and awarded both he and Adriana House points for their exemplary work in his class. Most of the other teachers did the same, but Dumbledore was decidedly more reserved with his praise—at least where Tom was concerned. From what he heard, the Transfiguration professor didn't dote on Adriana the way Slughorn did his favorites, but she was obviously the first-year he enjoyed working with most. Which was unfair, because Adriana had more difficulty in Dumbledore's class than any other, leaving Tom the star student.

She might have raw power that could rival his, but Adriana lacked the sort of fine-tuned control over magic that came so naturally to him. And Transfiguration, more than any other discipline, required a kind of subtle restraint she simply hadn't yet developed.

There was one thing Tom chose to study alone: genealogy. He came to the library without Adriana three times a week for two months and pored over every book in Madam Hart's collection about wizarding families. At least one of his parents must have been magical, he was certain, and he suspected it was his father. After all, what sort of witch worth her salt would have died in the birthing bed?

So he looked high and low for a Riddle, any Riddle, for some shred of proof that his ancestry was as great as he was. But he found nobody by his father's surname in any of the fat, dusty tomes on genealogy and family histories. As the weeks passed, and he continued to search in vain, Madam Hart began to give him a sympathizing sort of look that Tom hated. He could imagine how he appeared to the librarian: a poor orphan boy trying to find a phantom family within the dry pages of half-forgotten books. Still, he turned Madam Hart's pity to his advantage and asked her if she could possibly obtain any new books on wizarding families.

"I'll do a little research and see if there's anything out there." She smiled sadly and said, "Don't hope for too much, though, dear. Whatever you're looking for, if you can't find it in the Hogwarts library, it probably doesn't exist."

* * *

It happened again on a cold November day shortly after she turned twelve. Adriana was in the common room, struggling to transfigure a chunk of iron into silver, when she felt a sudden surge of magic, filling her body and exploding outward through her wand. The blast destroyed the table she was working at; wooden shards flew in every direction, and it was pure luck that none of the larger pieces pierced a student.

A prefect, Rachel Goldstein, rushed to her side, and asked, "Are you all right?"

"I'll be fine," Adriana said. She closed her eyes to keep the room from spinning. She felt dizzy, lightheaded, and drained, as if every bit of energy had been sucked from her body.

Rachel said, "You're going to the hospital wing. Come on."

Too weak to protest, she suffered the indignity of letting one of the sixth-year Quidditch players carry her across the castle.

At the hospital wing, Madam Graham performed a perfunctory examination and asked, "Have you been sick recently?"

"No," Adriana said. "No more than usual."

Madam Graham frowned. "You don't seem to have any of the common magical illnesses, but something definitely isn't right. Your body is in the condition of someone recovering from a nasty bout of dragonpox—that is to say you're weakened and suffering malnutrition. How well do you eat?"

"I have a hard time keeping a lot of foods down, so I don't eat much," Adriana admitted, and she could feel color coming to her cheeks. These things were personal, but if she wanted any chance of getting better she needed to cooperate.

There was a time when Adriana had no problems with food or controlling her magic, but that was before her mother started starving and beating her. But she wasn't about to tell Madam Graham _that_.

"Can you perform magic?"

Adriana tried a simple spell, but the roll of bandages she attempted to levitate remained stationary. "No," she said. "But my magic will come back. It always does."

"This has happened before?" Madam Graham asked.

"Yes. It used to be more often, but I've only had two accidents in the last couple of years." Ever since she'd been expelled from her family home and dropped at Wool's Orphanage, Adriana hadn't suffered the number of episodes she'd experienced beneath her mother's roof. But it bothered her that something of the harm inflicted on her lingered under her skin, interfering with her ability to control her magic.

"I'm putting you on bed rest, here, for the next twenty-four hours, so I can keep an eye on you," Madam Graham said.

"I don't want to miss class," Adriana said.

Madam Graham shook her head. "This isn't a negotiation. Not even Headmaster Dippet can trump my say-so in this hospital wing."

So Adriana changed into the colorless pajamas that Madam Graham kept on hand for just such situations and went to bed. The hospital cot wasn't nearly as comfortable as her four-poster in Gryffindor Tower, but she was far too tired to care.

She woke to early morning sunlight, drifting in through the high windows, golden and bright, and the smell of lemons.

"Ah, you're awake," said Professor Dumbledore. He popped a yellow hard candy into his mouth. "I was beginning to wonder if you might sleep as long as Rip Van Winkle."

"How long was I out?" Adriana asked. She still felt weak, but the dizziness and nausea were gone, and when she picked up her wand, she found that she could perform magic again.

"Almost two days," he said.

"Oh. That's longer than usual." She yawned, stretched, and asked, "Can I go back to Gryffindor Tower now?"

"You'll be free to leave soon," Professor Dumbledore said, "but first we need to have a discussion about what happened in the common room."

That didn't sound pleasant or promising. "What do we need to talk about?"

"I spoke with Madam Graham," he said, "and she told me that you've been experiencing these sorts of episodes, where your magic bursts from you without your control, for several years. Is that correct?"

"Yes," Adriana said evenly. She didn't like that Madam Graham had shared any part of their conversation with someone else.

Professor Dumbledore nodded. "I have to ask you a personal question now, the answer to which is none of my business, and I hope you don't take offense. Have you ever suffered any kind of trauma in relation to your magic?"

 _Every other day for years_ , she thought but didn't say.

"How did you know?" Adriana asked.

"Because I once knew a girl with a similar problem," Professor Dumbledore said. The smile he gave her was soft and sad. "Her case was more severe than yours—she couldn't control her magic at all—but if I'm not much mistaken you have the same condition."

 _There's someone like me?_

"What happened to her? Did she ever get cured?" Adriana asked, and she couldn't quite keep the hopefulness out of her voice.

"She's dead," Professor Dumbledore said. "But the cause of her death was unrelated to her difficulties with magic. And no, there was no cure for her illness."

"I see," Adriana said, and she felt her short-lived hope dissipate. She fidgeted with the sheet to have something to do with her hands.

"I'm sorry I don't have better news for you," Professor Dumbledore said gently. "I wish I could tell you that there's a cure to the condition you're suffering, but I think the matter goes deeper than any spell or potion can fix. The way your body handles and processes magic has been irrevocably altered because of the hurt you've experienced."

Adriana wanted to scream, wanted to cry, but she'd learned years ago that hysterics earned you nothing but further pain. _Dry it up_ , her mother used to say. _Or I'll give you another_.

Oh how Mum must be laughing. Her dearest wish had been to stamp out her daughter's unnatural powers, and now, years after the hateful treatment was over, Adriana knew what she'd always suspected: she was irreparably damaged.


	7. Secrets

**CHAPTER SEVEN**

 **Secrets**

 _1938_

* * *

Tom had visited Adriana in the hospital wing while she slept. But the sight of her so pale and fragile, her stillness only broken by the gentle rise and fall of her breast with each breath, scared him. She looked ill, like Sammy Harlow right before he died, and Tom did not want to think on that. Sickness had always unnerved him, and so he left Adriana's bedside five minutes after he arrived and returned to his common room, heart pounding and hands clammy.

"Are you all right?" Celeste asked, and she placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. Perhaps the gesture was supposed to be comforting, but it only angered him. He did not like to be touched, and it took all of his self control not to recoil. "You don't look very well, Tom."

"I'm fine," he said, and he conjured a reassuring sort of smile to convince her.

"Well, if you're really okay, do you want to play a game of holdem with me and the others?" she asked.

"I can't," Tom said bluntly. "I haven't got the money."

"We're only playing Sickle poker," she said, "Nothing big."

Somehow he managed to keep his expression neutral. "I should have said I haven't got _any_ money."

"Oh," Celeste said, and she looked surprised and a little embarrassed. Because of course she hadn't considered the notion that someone might not even have pocket change. "Well I'd be happy to let you have a little money if you want to play."

Accepting charity rankled his pride, but really, if she wanted to throw away her silver on him, why should Tom stop her? After all, that was the entire reason he was courting her affections, to gain advantages. "Thank you," he said. "That's so generous."

Tom and Celeste joined the table where a mix of first- and second-years were seated: Alphard, Grayson, Adrastos, Corbin Mulciber, and Nina Fawley.

"I'm a little surprised you're playing, Riddle," said Corbin. "You don't seem the gambling type."

What a subtle way to remind the table of his poverty. Corbin always had something snide to say, either about Tom's used books and secondhand robes or his mysterious heritage.

 _When I learn the Cruciatus, Corbin's the first one I'm trying it on._

He'd read about the Unforgivable Curses in an old edition of an upper level Defense book. The Killing Curse was the one that most intrigued him, a spell that could snuff out life in less than a heartbeat, but he could see the uses of Imperius and Cruciatus as well.

For now, Tom just said, "I like card games. Well, ones that don't singe your hair."

Grayson had introduced him to Exploding Snap a few days ago, and it wasn't an experience Tom cared to repeat.

Grayson laughed. "It was hilarious, Tom. You should have seen your face when that flush combusted."

"Don't worry," Celeste said, "these are just self-shuffling cards."

The game passed by pleasantly enough, although Tom had more difficulty concentrating than he expected. He kept wondering about Adriana, whether she was awake yet and if she was all right. Even distracted, he managed to dominate the table. Luck didn't favor him with many strong hands, but he could count the cards well enough that he knew when to fold, and his poker face was utterly unreadable.

"You're killing us, Tom," said Celeste. "How much silver do you have over there?"

He shrugged, all nonchalance. "Enough to make a few Galleons."

"Are you good at _everything_?" Grayson asked, clearly annoyed. Out of all them, he'd performed the worst and lost the most money, but he kept pulling more and more Sickles from his bag, refusing to quit.

"Sorry," Tom said, trying to sound humble and apologetic.

"Don't be a sore loser, Grayson," Nina said.

While they played, talk turned to their parents' politics. Alphard's cousin, Araminta Meliflua, was trying to push a bill through the Ministry to legalize Muggle hunting.

"It's ridiculous," said Alphard. "Hunting Muggles would break the Statute of Secrecy in about a dozen different ways."

"We _should_ break the Statute," said Adrastos, "and then get rid of it altogether. We're the superior people. Why should we have to live in secret?"

It seemed backwards to Tom as well. With the might of magic on their side, there was no good reason for the wizarding community to hide in the shadows while Muggles had the run of the world.

 _Someday things will be different_ , Tom thought. _I'll make them change if I have to_.

* * *

The morning after her release from the hospital wing, Adriana went to the library and checked out a dozen books on magical sickness and injuries.

"Are you wanting to be a Healer?" Madam Hart asked kindly.

"I'm considering it," Adriana lied, as the only person she had any interest in healing was herself.

Just because nobody had yet developed a cure for her condition didn't mean one was impossible, and she intended to find it. Adriana took the books back to Gryffindor Tower and began to read about everything from spattergroit to spell damage.

Magical illnesses, she learned, were attracted only to magical people; Muggles were immune to them. There were a dozen essays in _The Theory of Arcane Ailments_ about why this might be. A Swedish warlock, Johan Ahlberg, went as far as to suggest that this was because Muggles and wizards were different classes of humans entirely:

 _In no other race besides humanity do you find both arcane and mundane offspring. House elves, goblins, merfolk: all are purely magical beings, with no non-magical counterparts. Even among the basest creatures, such as doxies and fairies, you will find no "Muggles." Why, then, does arcane ability vary within the human race?_

 _Because there is no singular race at all: we are distinct species, wizard and Muggle. The two may look alike, but they are too fundamentally different in the most significant ways to be the same. This is why magical ailments do not affect Muggles. After all, a dog cannot catch a dragon's disease._

Ahlberg went on to describe the dilution of wizarding blood through intermarriage with Muggles, and called Muggle-born witches and wizards unnatural phenomena borne from this miscegenation.

Adriana closed the book. She'd examined enough theory for one day.

"Is there an exam coming up that nobody told me about?" Meg asked.

Adriana looked at her and said, "No, I'm just doing research for a pet project."

Of her five roommates, Meg was Adriana's favorite. She was outgoing but not pushy and bright without being smug.

"You and Riddle are always researching something," Meg said. She changed unabashedly, giving up her robes and school clothes for a bright red winter dress that looked pretty against her dark skin.

"Are you going somewhere?" Adriana asked.

"Yeah, I'm meeting the girls at the pitch," Meg said. "We're going to watch the Ravenclaw boys smash Slytherin in an unofficial match. Wanna come?"

"I don't really care for Quidditch," Adriana said.

Meg shrugged. "Suit yourself. See you later."

Adriana returned to her stack of medical texts. Surely there was a single useful thing in one of these books.

Except if there was, it couldn't be found. The only book that discussed magic related trauma was _Beyond the Unforgivable: Recovery and Rehabilitation_ , but it focused entirely on survivors of the Cruciatus Curse. An interesting read, if unhelpful.

Adriana returned to classes on Monday, now knowing the antidotes to treat common poisons, how to mend broken bones with magic, and the best palliative treatments for a patient dying of dragonpox. But she was no closer to finding an answer to her problem than discovering a cure for lycanthropy.

In Potions, she paired up with Tom, as usual, but when they began working on their assignments, she noticed that he was stealing covert glances at her, a slight frown pulling at his handsome features.

After a quarter hour of this, Adriana stopped chopping her fluxweed and said, "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Like what?" Tom asked. He studiously stared at the white baneberries he was crushing with a pestle.

"Like you think I'm going to keel over," Adriana said coolly.

"Well you did just get out of the hospital wing," Tom said.

"I'm fine." She chopped an extra half-ounce of fluxweed than the textbook called for and scattered it into her elixir until the surface turned royal blue. "My magic just got a little out of hand on Thursday."

"That's not how I heard it," Tom said, as he scooped up the baneberry pulp and added it to his own potion. "Half your House swears you blew up every stick of furniture in the Gryffindor common room."

"Half my House are morons," Adriana said. "And it was one table, not all of the furniture."

Professor Slughorn looked in on them, smiling, and said, "Excellent work, Tom. Five points to Slytherin. And Adriana, this is precisely what an Elating Elixir should look like. Ten points to Gryffindor."

It wasn't often she got such an obvious one-up over Tom, who was quickly becoming as much a rival as a friend. Adriana couldn't help but gloat a little. "Maybe next time you'll be more creative. Then you might actually catch up to me."

"And maybe next Transfiguration class you'll blow up another table," Tom said nastily.

Adriana scowled, her good humor gone in an instant. "Shut up," she said.

That stung more than she was willing to admit, and she did not talk to him for the rest of the day.

* * *

Tom opened Adrastos's copy of the _Pure-blood Directory_ and read about the Sacred Twenty-Eight. Each chapter was dedicated to one family, complete with genealogies, detailed histories of notable ancestors, and connections to other pure-blood lines. First, he read about the Blacks and found that his roommate's kin could date their ancestry back to the Dark Ages. The Lestranges were nearly as old and even wealthier. The Averys were somewhat newer, coming to prominence and purifying their line around the 18th century, but they had established themselves well in the last two hundred years.

Then Tom turned to the House of Gaunt's chapter, and the first thing he saw, right at the bottom of the family tree, was his own middle name written there: _Marvolo_ , plain as day.

He was called after his father and his maternal grandfather, Tom knew that. This was the only clue he had to his heritage, but he'd been so convinced that his mother couldn't have been a witch that he never thought to look for his grandfather's name.

 _I'm a half-blood_ , Tom thought. _And my mother was from one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight_.

Suddenly feverish to know more, he looked back at the family tree, to the lines and names branching down from Marvolo's union to his wife (and first cousin), Melpomene Gaunt. First was Morfin, who must be Tom's uncle, and then Merope.

 _That was her name. Merope._ He said it aloud; the sound of it was not beautiful to the ear. Although Tom couldn't place the meaning, he remembered vaguely from his Astronomy book that Merope was some tragic Greek figure, the dimmest star in her constellation. Her parents must have been disappointed with her birth to give her such a name.

As a child, he'd hated the idea of his mother. She went into labor with him at the orphanage, and clearly it was her intention to abandon him there. Whenever he thought of escaping that dreary place, he always imagined his father coming to rescue him. This older Tom Riddle looked mostly like himself writ large, and he always said that his mother had lied about her pregnancy, that he'd never known he had a son.

It was a stupid dream, one he gave up by the age of seven. Most likely, his father did know about his existence, and he simply wanted him no more than Merope had.

Tom pushed those musings away and continued reading about the Gaunts. His family had once been powerful and rich, but too many years of ill made investments left them struggling. Still, the anonymous author of the _Directory_ maintained that the Gaunts were to be commended for their exceptional purity, which was worth far more than gold. They had blood ties to a dozen of the other families amongst the Sacred Twenty-Eight and were descended from the Caveliers through the female line—who were themselves descendants of no less than the Slytherins.

 _To this day the surviving members of the Gaunt family, all that remains of Salazar Slytherin's heritage, carry the Hogwarts Founder's trademark trait: the ability to converse with snakes._

If he'd had any doubt for a moment that the Gaunts were truly his family, those misgivings were dispelled now.

Tom was right all along; he _was_ descended from greatness, just not in the way he'd expected.

This wasn't information he could give to just anyone, but trusting a small number of his Housemates with the knowledge could go a long way toward improving his lot amongst the pure-bloods.

Tom was patient. He waited until Christmas approached, carefully evaluating his acquaintances, deciding who to share his revelation with. He settled upon Adrastos, Grayson, Matthew Nott, Julius Rosier, and Corbin—the latter in part because he wanted the older boy to rue ever having been so disrespectful. Not Alphard, though, because Tom would bet all the gold in Gringotts that deep down he was a Muggle-lover.

He could have told Adriana, but he didn't. She had been strange lately, always locked away in Gryffindor Tower, studying for some project she refused to explain to him. She could keep her secrets, whatever they were—Merlin knew he had plenty of his own.

The night before the winter holiday started, he asked the boys he'd selected to meet him in the common room at midnight. They agreed, if somewhat reluctantly, and once they were alone, Tom told them what he'd found in the _Pure-blood Directory_ , the evidence that he was Slytherin's heir. Then he spoke Parseltongue to prove it, and no sooner than the serpentine words left his mouth, the way they looked at him changed. Doubt was replaced by awe, dismissal with respect, and Tom knew that from now on, whatever he asked of these boys, they would do as he commanded.

* * *

Adriana was the only Gryffindor who chose to remain at Hogwarts for Christmas break, and so she had the entire common room to herself. She enjoyed the solitude, the first she'd had in awhile, especially since her school, for all its virtues, was rarely a _quiet_ place.

Tom had stayed too, of course, because who in their right mind would choose Wool's over Hogwarts? They'd drifted apart in the last few weeks, Adriana busy with her research, Tom occupied with his own affairs, and she looked forward to spending time alone with him again.

With only five students remaining at the school for the holiday, house tables were abandoned in favor of one trestle table for both children and staff. Besides she and Tom, there were two Hufflepuffs and a nervous-looking Ravenclaw seventh-year who said she'd stayed at Hogwarts to study for the N.E.W.T.s without interruption.

After breakfast, Adriana caught Tom by the hand and whispered, "Still want to see the Gryffindor common room?"

His eyes widened and he nodded, so she led him up seven flights of stairs to the Fat Lady's tower. " _Oedipus Rex_ ," Adriana said, and at the password, the portrait swung forward, revealing the entrance. They hurried inside, and although Tom tried not to show it, she could tell he was impressed.

"It's warmer than the Slytherin common room," he said, "but I still don't like it as much."

"Of course you don't," Adriana said. "Well I doubt I'd enjoy your dungeon, so you can keep it."

"Why'd you change your mind and let me come here?" Tom asked.

"Dunno, really," she said, but the truth was that she'd missed him and didn't want half a castle standing between them all through their Christmas holiday.

They settled in front of the hearth with a blanket, pillows, and a novel, and Tom read to Adriana, like they used to do at the orphanage. Somehow, that seemed like a long time ago, although it had only been a few months. She settled on her stomach and listened to the smooth cadence of his voice, admiring the confidence and clarity with which he spoke, and closed her eyes.

"Are you asleep?" Tom asked, obviously irritated.

"No," Adriana said, and she sat up abruptly, trying to look alert.

He smirked. "You're a bad liar, you know that?"

"Well we can't all be as deceitful as you, Tom," Adriana said. "Speaking of which, what is it you've been hiding from me?"

He scowled, set the book aside, and asked, "What makes you think I'm hiding anything?"

She smiled. "Apart from the fact that you're always up to something no-good?"

Tom smiled right back, but it was that awful counterfeit grin that he flashed at Celeste Lestrange and the other girls to charm them. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said.

"Yes, you do. And I can tell you're going to spill it. You're just making me wait," Adriana said.

"I found out about my family," he said proudly. "My mother was a witch from the Gaunt family, and guess who they're pure-blood descendants from?"

"Merlin?" Adriana asked innocently.

Tom laughed, and there was the same wild happiness on his face that she'd seen in the cave the day that he tortured Dennis and Amy. "Even better," he said. "Salazar Slytherin himself."

"You're kidding," Adriana said, too stunned to disbelieve him.

"I swear it," Tom said solemnly. "It's why I can talk to snakes. I'm a Parselmouth, just like Slytherin."

"Well I hope you don't expect me to treat you any differently," Adriana said. "I don't care who your ancestors were, you're still just Tom Riddle to me."

That wiped the smirk from his face. "And what about you and your secret project?" Tom asked. "Ever gonna tell me what that's about?"

"Maybe," Adriana said lightly, "but not today."

She didn't want Tom to look at her differently. If he knew that those episodes she had weren't so much accidents as they were the symptoms of an illness, evidence that her magical ability had been corrupted, he would see her as weak, and that's something Adriana could never abide.


	8. Skin Deep

**CHAPTER EIGHT**

 **Skin Deep**

 _1939_

* * *

In the middle of March the castle was still cloaked in snow drifts, but by April the world was vibrant and green again. The gardens flourished, the fresh air smelled of cut grass, and the students spent time lazing by the lake when they should have been studying.

Things had been better for Tom ever since he revealed his ancestry to that handful of Slytherin boys. Now Adrastos and the others looked to him for instruction, instead of the other way around, and soon the rest of his classmates and even some of the second- and third-years followed suit.

True to her word, Adriana didn't treat him one bit differently. Tom wasn't sure whether he should be annoyed by this or merely thankful that his only real friend had not turned into a lackey like all the rest.

After Christmas, Adrastos had been quick to tell him about the Chamber of Secrets, which only the Heir of Slytherin should be able to open, and so Tom spent a good deal of his free time searching the castle for the entrance to the Chamber. So far he'd examined all of the dungeons and basements, as well as part of the ground floor, but his efforts were fruitless. He found a secret passageway that led all the way to Hogsmeade and nothing more.

Today, he and Adriana were outside, practicing Charms. Her dark red hair caught the sunlight, and Tom thought, somewhat distantly, that it was a beautiful color. She waved her wand at a patch of wildflowers and they began to climb the castle wall.

"Maybe you should research your family too," Tom said. "You might find out you have wizarding relatives."

"My parents were Muggles," Adriana said, and the patience in her voice was wearing thin. "I've told you this at least a dozen times."

"I refuse to believe that you're from purely Muggle stock," Tom said. "You're too brilliant a witch to be a Mudblood."

She looked at him sharply. "So you're saying that word now, like all of your pure-blood friends?"

"So what if I am?" Tom asked. Bored, he tapped a pretty pink blossom with his wand and watched it shrivel up, growing brown and limp.

"Well I think it's stupid," Adriana said. She pointed her wand at the flower he'd just killed and it sprang back to life. "Muggle-borns are just as good at magic as any other witch or wizard."

Tom scoffed. "Jack Oldham can barely perform a Levitation Charm."

"Jack Oldham's an idiot, but that isn't because he's Muggle-born," she said.

"Anyway, you should look up the Sharrows. See if you've got some wizard uncle out there or something," Tom said. "And your mum's family. What was her maiden name?"

"I don't know," she said. "We weren't close, and she never talked about her old life. But even if I did know, I don't think any books at Hogwarts would have much to say about her family, because she wasn't from Britain."

"Really?" he asked, curious now. "Is that why you've got a funny sort of accent?"

Adriana frowned. "There's nothing funny about the way I talk, but yes, she spoke German in our house all the time, and I picked up most of it."

"If you don't know anything about your mother, how do you know she wasn't a witch in hiding?" Tom asked. "You could be a half-blood, like me."

"No, I couldn't," Adriana said, and she shot him the sort of cold glare that would have intimidated anyone else. "Now leave it alone."

"Fine, if you want everybody to think you're a Mudblood, I don't care," Tom said. He stood, wiped the loose grass off of his robes, and left her there alone.

* * *

The last Slug Club supper of the year fell on the penultimate Saturday in May. Adriana wore her best secondhand robes (now a little short in the ankle), braided her hair, and walked to Slughorn's office.

Tom was already there, seated to their professor's right. Adriana would have taken the other seat beside her friend, but Celeste had already claimed that chair. She sat a little closer to him than was strictly necessary, but this was not surprising; every first-year at Hogwarts knew the pretty Lestrange girl fancied Tom. It irritated Adriana, although she wasn't quite sure why.

She sat at the other side of the round table, between Ravenclaw Beater Brutus McLaggan and one of her own Housemates, a vivacious fourth-year named Anastasia Osterley.

"So glad all of you could make it!" Slughorn said. "All my star students here in one place. Now, Adrastos and Celeste, do tell me how your cousin Ulysses is? You know he was the best student of his year, and I hear he's gone on to join the Most Extraordinary Society of Potioneers…"

Adriana tuned out her professor's conversation with the Lestrange children and turned her attention to the food. She helped herself to a salad rich with quail eggs, avocado, and pecans. She ate slowly and carefully, as always, and even though she helped herself to nothing more than the salad, she was the last to finish her meal.

Adriana looked up when Slughorn called her name. "I have an opportunity for you and Tom here," he said. "How would you like to start making more advanced potions? I'd give you all the necessary ingredients and access to one of the dungeons to work in."

"I'd love that, Professor," said Tom, "and I'm sure Adriana would too."

Slughorn laughed and said, "Now let the girl speak for herself, m'boy."

She thought it over for a moment, considering whether she wanted to give up her free time—when she could be studying whatever kind of magic she chose—to make potions for her professor.

"If it will sway you, I intend to sell whatever you and Tom successfully manage to brew, and you're more than welcome to a piece of the profits," Slughorn said, smiling jovially.

Adriana had never had any money of her own, apart from the small allowance Hogwarts provided for students in need, and the prospect was too tempting to pass up. "Thank you, Professor," she said. "Of course I'm interested."

She glanced in Celeste's direction and saw that the other girl looked rather put-out. No doubt because Tom would now be spending even more time alone with Adriana and less with her. She might have felt a little sorry for Celeste, who was infatuated with a lie, but Adriana was too indifferent toward her to quite manage it.

The girl certainly wasn't alone in her admiration for Tom. Every student in their year looked up to him, not only for his brilliance and sly humor (which were genuine), but also for his kindness and compassion (which were not). Even some of the older boys from pure-blood families treated him as a leader. They all seemed entranced by Tom's charade, utterly devoted to a boy who didn't really exist.

This bothered Adriana, that Tom felt the need to maintain such a masquerade, and a very small part of her looked forward to the summer, if only so she could be around her friend without a veil of pretense between them most of the time.

* * *

Between making potions with Adriana, working for his actual classes, searching for the Chamber of Secrets, and leading the Slytherin circle, the second term passed by even more swiftly than the first. Exams proved to be little more than a joke to Tom, and to no one's surprise, he and Adriana were at the top of the class. She edged him out in their Potions final, but he eclipsed her in Transfiguration. They tied with one hundred percent marks in the rest of their subjects.

Before he knew it, the Hogwarts Express was carrying him back to London, returning him to the orphanage and Muggle life.

Celeste sat next to him, as she was wont to do, and hooked her arm through his. He still didn't favor her touch, but he was growing used to it.

"I can't believe the school year's over," she said. "It seems like we were just on the way to Hogwarts yesterday."

"I, for one, am happy that the summer is here." Grayson took the window seat across from Tom and said, "No exams, no homework, no professors breathing down our necks. Sounds good to me."

"And don't forget all of the events," said Melanie Parkinson. "The Malfoys are throwing a white party in July, Bethany Burke and Ethan Rosier are getting married in August, and, Alphard, aren't your grandparents having some big to-do for their next anniversary?"

Alphard nodded but didn't look up from his book.

When the trolley witch came by, Adrastos and Grayson bought snacks for the entire compartment. So Tom ate two Cauldron Cakes without spending a Knut, but he barely tasted them. Thinking about his Housemates together without him, enjoying parties while he languished at Wool's, was enough to put him in a foul mood, although he didn't show it throughout the rest of the ride to London.

Mrs. Cole picked up Tom and Adriana outside of King's Cross and drove them back to the orphanage without once asking after their school year. But she did say, "You ought to know that I had to give your rooms to other children. We're full up now, no space to spare, and I couldn't leave those rooms empty for ten months, just waiting for the two of you to come back from your special school."

"You gave my _room_ away?" he asked, not bothering to hide his anger. He hadn't much cared for his quarters at Wool's, but they were his, and Tom did not like to lose the things that belonged to him.

"I had to," Mrs. Cole snapped, and she turned at the next corner a little more sharply than was probably wise.

"Well where are _we_ going to sleep now?" Tom asked. "The cellar?"

"Of course not," Mrs. Cole said. "I've cleared out the attic and set up two cots. There are separate rooms, so you'll have plenty of privacy. It'll suit you well enough for the summers."

"Oh the attic," Tom said acidly. "That's much better."

"You should be thankful that I'm taking you back at all, after the trouble you've caused over the years," Mrs. Cole said, and she looked at him in the rearview mirror. "One more word out of you, and you can walk home, Tom Riddle."

Adriana put a steadying hand on his wrist, and the warmth of her touch grounded him and stayed his temper. He kept his mouth shut for the rest of the ride, silent but no less furious.

 _The orphanage isn't my home_ , Tom thought. _Hogwarts is._

* * *

Adriana missed having her own room, and she was no happier about the attic arrangement than Tom. But she saw no use in complaining about things she had no power over, and while her friend was busy fuming, she examined both rooms and chose the larger of the two.

"Stop whining," she said. "It's getting on my nerves."

Tom shot her a hateful look, but he shut up just the same.

After all the excitement at Hogwarts, the next few weeks at Wool's were both slow and dreadfully dull. Once she grew used to it, Adriana actually felt thankful for the new rooming situation. Up in the attic, they were sequestered from the other orphans (and she wondered whether that might have been Mrs. Cole's true intention in stowing them away upstairs), so at least she and Tom had the freedom to discuss magic.

"Stupid bloody Trace," he said. "If not for that we could be practicing Transfiguration right now."

Magic was an integral part of her person, something no one had ever been able to fully take away from her, not even her mother, and she hated not being able to use it. "What a stupid law," Adriana said, "banning underage magic over the summers."

"Someday I'll change that," Tom said. He lay on his bed, long legs stretched out, reading her copy of _Hogwarts: A History_ for the second time this week.

"You?" Adriana asked. She opened the lone window, tempting a summer breeze into the stuffy attic. "You want to work at the Ministry?"

"Maybe." He turned a page idly and said, "I'm not sure yet. I'd still like to teach, at least for a year or two."

Adriana sat on the edge of Tom's bed and tilted _Hogwarts: A History_ down so that she could better see his face. "I think you'd be a great professor."

The faintest pinkness colored Tom's hollow cheeks. "Thanks," he said.

"What do you say we get out of here?" Adriana asked. "Go to Diagon Alley just to be somewhere in the magical world."

"Sure," Tom said. "If I don't get away from these Muggles I'll go mad."

They only had a little money, just the few Galleons Slughorn gave them as their cut of the profit from the Wit-Sharpening and Wiggenweld Potions they'd brewed at the end of the school year; their stipends from Hogwarts would arrive later in the summer, along with their supply lists. Still, any money was better than none, and they each bought a new book from Flourish and Blotts: Adriana selected the thickest text on magical injuries that she could find, while Tom chose a brand new encyclopedia of defensive spells, fresh off the printers from Obscurus Books.

After that, they wandered the alley, looking through shop windows, admiring all the items they couldn't afford.

"What's this?" Tom asked. He pointed to a side street that branched off from the main road. A wooden sign named it Knockturn Alley.

It was not bright and bustling like its neighbor street. Rather, the alley looked shadowed and almost deserted, but Adriana was too interested not to explore it. "C'mon," she said.

Within a minute of walking down Knockturn Alley, she had seen a dodgy-looking pub called The White Wyvern and a half-dozen stores that were almost certainly on the wrong side of the Ministry's laws. One place had the ominous name The Coffin House, and Adriana could only imagine what was sold there. There were innocuous businesses, like barber and clothing shops, but most of the establishments seemed to be of a Dark bent.

Perhaps this should have scared or repulsed her, but it didn't. Adriana had spent her first year at Hogwarts painfully curious about the Dark Arts, which she only learned about peripherally in her Defense classes. Merrythought was an excellent professor, but she insisted that all Dark spells were evil, as was anyone who cast them, and this seemed far too simplistic to Adriana. She'd even asked Slughorn and Dumbledore for special passes to check out books from the Restricted Section of the library, but both had insisted that she was far too young to be studying such things.

Tom rushed ahead of her, and Adriana had to run to catch up to him. "Let's go in here," he said, and she saw that he'd stopped before what appeared to be an antique shop. She followed him inside, and found a poorly lit space filled with all manner of unusual objects. Leering masks watched them from the walls, their wooden and porcelain faces twisted into expressions of rage and fear. One table held items that looked to be of Egyptian origin, including a wrapped mummy hand and a stone tablet covered with hieroglyphs. Another displayed nothing but bones, some small enough to be from birds or rodents, some that looked suspiciously human.

The shopkeeper, busy catering to a distinguished-looking wizard, didn't seem to notice their arrival—which was good, because she doubted he would tolerate the presence of two poor, twelve-year-old children in his store for long.

"Look at this," Tom said, and she hurried to his side. Beneath a glass case was a golden statue of a snake with emeralds for eyes. A small plaque beside it read that the statue was cursed; when touched, the snake would come to life and bite the unsuspecting person, poisoning them. Adriana nodded, then moved on to examine a table full of small objects. She was tempted to slip the trio of ancient Assyrian coins into her pocket, but there were undoubtedly enchantments all over the place, ready to alert the owner of thievery.

She returned to Tom, only to find him staring at an engraved silver dagger, a hungry expression on his handsome face. "When I'm grown I'm going to have the money for whatever I want," he said.

"Well unless you have enough for something today, I suggest you leave," said the shopkeeper, an oily sort of man who was now frowning at them.

"How much for the dagger?" Tom asked, even though he couldn't have more than five Galleons left in his pocket.

The man snorted. "More than you're like to see in your life, you little brat. Now get out of my shop."

Tom scowled at the owner, and she saw his right hand inch toward his wand. Adriana took him by the arm before he could do something stupid and half-dragged him out of Borgin and Burkes. Once they were outside, she asked, "Exactly what good would hexing the shopkeeper do?"

"Well it would have made me rather happy," Tom said, and he pulled his arm out of her grasp.

"You're unbelievable," Adriana said, but she couldn't help but smile. "Do you want to go back to Diagon Alley?"

"No," he said, "I want to stay here."

It would be wiser to slip away quietly, Adriana knew that, but she didn't want to go any more than Tom did. So instead of leaving, they wandered into another half-dozen shops and examined all kinds of items, things from the glamorous to the grotesque, until the owners kicked them out.

Much later, in bed at the orphanage, Adriana lay awake beside Tom, listening to the sound of crickets, carried in through the open window, and her friend turning the pages of _Hogwarts: A History_. It had to be eleven or twelve o'clock, but he always had trouble sleeping, and it was a rare night that he rested for more than five hours. Usually, Adriana had no difficulty in this regard, but tonight she couldn't stop thinking about Knockturn Alley. Finding it had opened up a new aspect of the wizarding world that had been kept from her up until now. She wanted to explore every inch of that place, to learn about new kinds of magic— _all_ kinds of magic—without regard to the category they belonged to.

"What do you think about the Dark Arts?" Adriana asked.

Tom set _Hogwarts: A History_ aside and turned to look at her. "I think it's stupid not to teach them. The Dark Arts are a part of magic, just like any other, and we have the right to study them."

"So you don't think they're evil?" she asked.

"There's no such thing as good and evil. Just power," Tom said, and something in his expression sent a chill through Adriana. Whether it was from fear or excitement, she wasn't sure.


	9. The Restricted Section

**CHAPTER NINE**

 **The Restricted Section**

 _1939_

* * *

Tom and Adriana spent the last days of the dwindling summer exploring Diagon Alley. The bartender at the Leaky Cauldron—Tom horse-face, as he preferred to think of the man—grew fond of the orphans who haunted his pub and started giving them butterbeer on the house every time they came in.

Today they sat by the fireplace, enjoying their free drinks. Tom could taste vanilla, butterscotch, and brown sugar with every swallow, and the subtlest hint of alcohol gave the butterbeer a warm bite.

"One week," Tom said, "and we'll be back at Hogwarts."

Adriana took a sip of her own drink. "Thank God. I'm sick of not being able to practice magic."

"You know, you could sit with me and my friends on the train," Tom said. "I promise they won't give you any grief for being—well, for not having any wizarding relatives you know about."

"Are you sure you can call them friends?" Adriana asked, voice light. "They seem more like minions."

"Well they will do nearly anything I ask," Tom said, a little smugly. "So I guess that's a fair point. But really, wouldn't you rather sit with me than the Gryffindors?"

"You and your fawning fan club? No thank you. I'll pass," said Adriana.

Tom frowned. "At least I'm getting to know people. How many friends did you make last year?"

Adriana shrugged, then finished off her butterbeer. "I'm busy learning magic; I don't need friends. Besides, knowing you is demanding enough."

"Well, you're not exactly a picnic either, you know," he said.

"Tom!"

He turned to see Celeste, Adrastos, and a tall, pretty witch who must be their mother. A little house elf scurried behind them, like a subservient shadow, arms laden with robes, books, and other school supplies. Tom stood and walked over to the Lestranges, smiling brightly.

Celeste hugged him. Instinct told him to push her away, but he knew better than to do any such thing, and made himself hug her back. It wasn't wholly unpleasant; at least she smelled nice, like lavender or some other flower, and she was warm and soft. When Celeste released him, she was blushing furiously, and the pinkness in her cheeks only made her prettier. Then she said, "Mother, this is Tom."

"It's very nice to meet you, Mrs. Lestrange," he said politely.

Mrs. Lestrange smiled and said, "My children have told my husband and I _all_ about you, Tom Riddle."

There was something knowing in the way she looked at him, and he wondered whether Adrastos had revealed to his parents that the Heir of Slytherin had returned to Hogwarts.

"I'm glad my children have befriended a boy such as yourself," Mrs. Lestrange said. "We were just about to get a little lunch at the Prince's Palace. Care to join us?"

"I'm sorry," Tom said, "but after school shopping, I don't have any money left."

"Don't worry about that, dear," Mrs. Lestrange said kindly. "One more on our ticket is no inconvenience to us."

"Then thank you," Tom said. "I'd love to come with you. If you'll give me just a moment, I need to say goodbye to my friend."

He returned to the table he'd been sharing with Adriana and said, "I've got to go. Adrastos's mother is taking me to some fancy restaurant for lunch. I'll see you back at Wool's, all right?"

"Sure," Adriana said dully. "Whatever."

Tom rejoined the Lestranges, and Celeste smiled at him brightly.

"Have you ever Side-Along Apparated?" Mrs. Lestrange asked.

"No, I haven't," Tom said.

"Well it's a little uncomfortable if you're not used to it," she warned.

Tom took the hand she offered, and a moment later he felt like he was being compressed on all sides, sucked through a tube, and then released on the other end, whole but unsteady. He stumbled a little, but caught himself before he could fall. Then he saw that they had Apparated to a country lane that led up to a mansion.

"It's an all-wizarding restaurant," Mrs. Lestrange assured him. "No Muggles at all."

"Good," Tom said. He'd had his fill of the non-magical this summer.

Once inside, an obsequious waiter led them to the top floor, to a great room with walls made all of glass, giving the patrons an excellent view of the green countryside. He took their party to a table right beside the windows, overlooking an ancient oak tree covered in moss.

Tom watched the others for an idea of how to handle the silverware properly and ordered the same things as his companions: turtle soup, steak and lobster, and creme brulee. After a summer of plain porridge and potatoes, the meal was delicious.

"It's a shame the Muggle hunting bill didn't go through," Mrs. Lestrange said. "Don't you think so, Tom?"

"Absolutely," he agreed. "Anything that would cull their numbers is a good thing."

"You grew up with Muggles, didn't you?" Adrastos asked. "What do you think of them?"

"They're dull, weak, and slow-witted," Tom said. "It's ridiculous that we have to hide from them."

"And what's your opinion on Mudbloods?" Mrs. Lestrange asked.

"They don't belong at Hogwarts," he said, then took a bite of his creme brulee. "It's an insult to the institution."

"Isn't Adriana a Mudblood?" Celeste asked carefully.

If only he knew the Killing Curse, Tom could have used it on her right then and there. Adriana was _not_ a Mudblood; he wouldn't believe it.

"Who's this?" asked Mrs. Lestrange.

"A friend of mine," Tom said. "She's a very skilled witch. But she's an orphan, like me, and she doesn't know her heritage."

That was at least partially true, he was certain.

As they finished off their dessert, Mrs. Lestrange said, "Tom, do know that our family is happy to provide you with anything you need."

"That's too kind," Tom said, "but I appreciate it just the same."

He was certain now that Adrastos had told his parents of his Slytherin heritage. Why else would a woman of her standing offer such assistance to a half-blood boy with nothing to his name?

After lunch, Mrs. Lestrange took him back to London, using Tom's directions to Apparate right in front of Wool's.

Celeste looked the orphanage up and down and asked, "This is where you live?"

She was trying to sound nonchalant, but he could hear something like pity in Celeste's voice, and Tom hated her for it.

* * *

The first thing Adriana did on the second of September was go to the library. She checked out books on magical concealment, wizarding laws, and defensive theory, then took the lot back to her dormitory. She read texts about Invisibility Cloaks, usually made from Demiguise pelts or specially imbued fabric; the Disillusionment Charm, which she determined to teach herself as soon as possible; the Statute of Secrecy; and Dementors and Patronuses. But it was difficult to concentrate with all of her roommates around, especially when Ilithyia was gossiping to Meg and the others about the Muggle boy she'd snogged all through August.

Why a witch would have any interest in a Muggle, Adriana couldn't imagine, but she kept this to herself.

After the other girls left, Meg approached Adriana's bed and asked, "So what were you up to this summer?"

"Not much," she said, looking up from her book. "I was stuck in the Muggle world with Tom. Mostly we bothered the shopkeepers in Diagon Alley."

Meg smiled and said, "My holiday was boring too. I'm glad to be back."

They went to lunch and sat at the Gryffindor table together. Meg asked about the books Adriana was reading. "What kind of topics are you studying?"

"All sorts," she said. Adriana filled a bowl with a creamy tomato bisque and began to eat. "I like anything about spellwork, whether it's practical or theoretical, and I'm trying to teach myself about wizarding law and culture, since I was raised by Muggles."

"That's smart," said Meg. "I'm half-blood—Mum's a Muggle, Dad's a wizard—so I grew up sort of a part of both worlds."

"Is that ever difficult?" Adriana asked. "Trying to be two things at once?"

"Sometimes," said Meg, around a bite of shepherd's pie. "None of my mother's family knows about me and Dad, so when I'm around my cousins and grandparents I've got to pretend to be a Muggle too. I don't like that, having to hide who I really am, especially from the people I love."

"I can see how that would be hard," Adriana said.

There was a time when she'd tried her best to suppress her magic, to conceal her true self, but in the end she always chose her powers over safety.

Adriana pushed those thoughts away; no good could come of them.

The first days of classes proved too simple to be interesting, and she hated handling infant Mandrakes in Herbology. Although she did get a good laugh out of hearing later that Tom, who had been the last to grab a pair of enchanted earmuffs in his own class, got stuck with the fluffy pink ones.

They kept brewing potions for Slughorn, which he was undoubtedly selling for a tidy profit that they saw little of, but Adriana didn't hold this against him. As the weeks passed and she and Tom continued to create nothing but exemplary products, their professor started to assign them more difficult potions.

Their first truly advanced assignment came on a cold night in October, and even through her robes Adriana could feel the chill in the dungeons. She wondered how Tom could stand living down here all the time.

"This is everything you need to make a Draught of Peace," Slughorn told them.

He laid out the ingredients and said, "Be careful now. This is a tricky one. Most of my fifth-years have difficulty with it."

Slughorn's warning proved warranted. The Draught of Peace was much harder to brew than anything she and Tom had attempted so far. Everything had to be timed perfectly, and the instructions in the fifth-year book were sorely lacking. When the potion remained a stubborn orange, refusing to turn the simple white it should have been, Adriana measured out an extra ounce of syrup of hellebore and added it to the concoction.

"Why are you doing that?" Tom asked.

"It's probably off because the unicorn horn and the moonstones weren't reacting together the way they're supposed to. More hellebore should work as a catalyst," she said.

Sure enough, within a few minutes the simmering potion had turned a perfect white and started emitting a silver vapor.

"Do you think we'll get more money off of this one?" Tom asked. "Since it's advanced?"

"I hope so," Adriana said. She performed a quick spell that sluiced all of the Draught of Peace into two dozen vials, then turned to Tom. "Want to practice magic with me?" she asked. "I think we've almost got the hang of the Disillusionment Charm."

"Can't," Tom said, as he cleaned up the mess of leftover ingredients. "I promised I'd do something with my friends after I finished up here."

"Right," she said. "Enjoy having your boots licked."

He frowned, clearly irritated by her jab at his companions, and said, "Enjoy being utterly alone."

Adriana spent all night practicing the Disillusionment Charm on her own, and by morning she was able to cast a perfect spell that camouflaged her whole body. But the accomplishment didn't feel as sweet as it should have, because she had no one to share it with.

* * *

He was looking down at his body: still, lifeless, and white, eyes blank. Tom reached out and touched the corpse. It was cold and stiff with rigor mortis, and he jerked his hand away.

 _I'm dead_. _I died and now I'm nothing._

Tom woke with a start, heart pounding, and sat bolt upright in bed.

 _It was just a dream_ , he told himself. _Nothing more._

But he could not unsee his own dead body or unfeel the chill of it, and sleep evaded him for the rest of the night. He was paralyzed by fear, terrified by the thought of death. It was as inevitable as winter, a prospect he could not avoid forever. He felt as if a headsman's axe loomed above his neck, and he was merely waiting for the blade to fall, with no idea of when the blow would be struck.

 _There must be some magic that will keep me from dying_ , Tom thought.

He'd read about the Philosopher's Stone, of course, but the only one in existence resided with Nicolas Flamel, and the old man was unlikely to part with it. But even the Stone was no guarantee of immortality, as it could be stolen or destroyed—and besides, Tom didn't like the idea of being dependent upon the Elixir of Life.

No, there had to be some other way, and he was determined to find it.

The next day he practiced the Disillusionment Charm in an empty classroom. He would have invited Adriana to join him, but somehow she'd already mastered the spell on her own, to his great irritation. Tom kept at it until his chameleonic body took on the exact image of its surroundings, and no one would be able to discern his presence in the room.

Then he searched out Adriana. He found her outside, sitting on a low stone wall, her cloak wrapped tight around herself to protect her from the cold autumn wind.

"I mastered the Charm," Tom said. "Let's do it tonight."

They met at the chosen spot—beside a tapestry of William the Widower marrying his seventh wife—both Disillusioned, and headed for the library. They kept an eye out for the caretaker, Apollyon Pringle, who liked to roam the halls at night in search of students out of bounds. He and Adriana were lucky and never crossed paths with him.

The library was silent and pitch black, so Tom said, " _Lumos_ ," and his wand emitted a bright light. They approached the Restricted Section, unhooked the rope that separated it from the rest of the library, and walked between the shelves. The books ranged from thin little volumes to huge tomes, some with the titles inscribed along their spines, some not. He selected one at random, opened it, and found a gruesome illustration of a woman being flayed with the incantation _Deglubos_. He flipped through the book and saw dozens of spells he'd never heard of, most useful only for torture.

"Do you realize how old this is?" Adriana asked. She held out a scroll, unrolled it, and Tom saw that it was full of hieroglyphs. "Know any translation spells?"

"No, but I think we're going to have to learn some, because half these titles aren't in English," he said.

He returned the volume on torture to its shelf and pulled out a larger book. This one was about potions, and Tom read through it, examining ingredient lists and descriptions, hungry to know more. There were Subjugation Potions that would enslave the drinker to fulfill your commands, philters which were near as strong as Amortentia (although he didn't see why love potions were included in a Dark Arts text), and all manner of elixirs and draughts that would incapacitate or kill your enemies.

"Find anything interesting?" Adriana asked.

"Yeah," Tom said. "I had no idea you could do so much with potions."

"This one is a history of Herpo the Foul," Adriana said. "You wouldn't believe the things that man got up to…"

There seemed to be little rhyme or reason to the arrangement of books here, as if someone had intentionally made it difficult to research anything in particular. Tom, who wanted to look into ways to extend and protect his life, found this incredibly frustrating. He had no choice but to pull books from their shelves whimsically, picking by whichever cover appealed to him.

He found a bestiary, detailing every Dark creature found in Europe and Asia; a text on the benefits of consuming unicorn blood; and a book simply titled _Maleficium_ , which appeared to be an encyclopedia of Dark objects, people, places, spells, and potions. Despite the breadth of its content, Tom found nothing inside that might help him attain immortality.

 _There has to be something, but how am I going to find it?_

They stayed in the Restricted Section for hours, reading about things so wicked that Tom could never have imagined them. Still, their exploration had barely scratched the surface, and he wanted to stay here, learning the lessons Hogwarts ignorantly deemed too nefarious to teach.

"We need to go," Adriana said. "It's got to be dawn, and Madam Hart will be arriving soon."

"Fine, but I'm taking this one with me." Tom tapped the book of curses with his wand, Disillusioning it, and followed Adriana out of the library.

They parted ways, she heading upstairs to Gryffindor Tower, he to the Slytherin Dungeon. Sunlight was streaming in through the high windows, illuminating the corridors, and he felt much less confident in the perfection of his Disillusionment in the light of day. Tom hurried to his common room as quickly and quietly as he could, light-footed but swift. He made it back without incident and hid the spellbook he'd borrowed at the bottom of his trunk.

As he lay in bed, Tom remembered last night's dream, now afraid to go to sleep. He hadn't found the answers he was looking for, no spell or potion to bring about immortality. No matter how careful he was, and no matter how skilled, death still waited for him. Perhaps on the morrow, perhaps eighty years from now, but sooner or later, it would claim him for its own, same as it had claimed the mother who bore him.

 _No_. _I'm not weak like her,_ he thought. _And I'm not going to die. Not if I can help it._

Tom wondered what it would take to become immortal, what sort of Dark magic he might be required to perform. He wasn't concerned about the complexity of the spellwork, but what if it was something so repugnant that he couldn't follow through?

He considered, for a moment, what he would not be willing to do to avoid death—and Tom found that there was nothing.


	10. Secrets of the Darkest Art

**CHAPTER TEN**

 **Secrets of the Darkest Art**

 _1940_

* * *

 _Of the Horcrux, wickedest of magical inventions, we shall not speak nor give direction._

Tom nearly threw the book across his dormitory. What was a Horcrux? And why would the author of _Magick Moste Evil_ , a text as steeped in the Dark Arts as any he had found,refuse to speak of it?

 _It must be very powerful. Or very dangerous._

Now he was too curious not to investigate the matter further, so Tom decided he would go back to the Restricted Section tonight and look for a book that would explain the function of a Horcrux. Perhaps it would be useful to his search for immortality, perhaps not, but anything that _Magick Moste Evil_ wouldn't touch on would be well worth the effort to explore.

Tom was tempted to tell Adriana about this fleeting mention of a new element of the Dark Arts, but she never showed up to Potions at all. Maybe she was skiving off class to practice magic on her own; she'd done it before and would likely do it again.

But when class ended, Slughorn asked him to stay behind, and by the grave look he wore, Tom could tell something awful had happened.

"Adriana had another accident this morning," Slughorn said. "She went to perform a spell in Professor Rosier's class and lost control of her magic."

Tom felt a sinking feeling in his stomach, as if he had swallowed a stone. "Is she all right?" He tried to keep his voice even, but it was difficult.

"She lost consciousness and hasn't woken up yet," Slughorn said, "but Madam Graham is confident that she'll recover."

"Can I go visit her?" Tom asked.

"Of course," said Slughorn. "I'll walk you to the hospital wing. I'd like to look in on her myself."

On the long trek across the castle, Tom could do nothing but brood about his friend's condition. What if Madam Graham was wrong and Adriana didn't wake up? Even if she did recover, it seemed these accidents weren't going anywhere. If they persisted, she could be badly hurt.

When this happened last year, Tom had been unable to stay by her side, but this time he wouldn't let his fear rule him. He approached her bed, determined not to run away.

Adriana hardly looked like herself. Her pretty grey eyes, always so vigilant, were closed and shadowed. She was pale, as if all the blood had been drained from her, and Tom noticed for the first time how truly delicate she was. Her presence made her seem larger, but she was small and still a little too slender. Fragile physically, if in no other way.

Without quite meaning to, he reached out and brushed a stray lock of red hair away from her temple. Why had he done that?

Slughorn left after a few minutes—he had another class to prepare for—but Tom stayed. He sat in the uncomfortable wooden chair beside Adriana's bed and watched her sleep. The subtle rise and fall of her chest, cresting with each shallow breath she took, reassured him that she would wake up, that she was going to be all right.

Except he watched over her for hours, and Adriana did not come to, did not so much as stir in her sleep. Madam Graham kicked him out of the hospital wing once visiting hours were over, and he returned to the Slytherin common room, sick with worry. Tom had never been truly concerned for another person before, and he did not like this feeling, a mix of anxiety and fear. Before he met Adriana, Tom had been utterly independent, unattached to anyone. Now look at him: fretting like an old maid.

 _I've let myself care too much about her._

Perhaps he should want to change this, to divorce himself from their friendship, but Tom could not have desired anything less. Adriana was too important to give up, and he was too selfish to let her go.

 _She could die too_ , he thought, and this realization scared him almost as much as the prospect of his own death. He knew what life was like without Adriana, without his only true friend, because he had lived it for ten years at the orphanage, and he had no wish to go through it again.

Tom hurried across the common room, then down to his dormitory, hoping to avoid Celeste and the others. If they saw him right now it would be obvious that something had shaken him, and he didn't want to appear weak. He closed the curtains around his bed, illuminating the space with a quick spell, and read _Magick Moste Evil_ from cover to cover. He learned a dozen new curses and potions, as well as the utility of Dementors if you sway them to your side, but nothing that would extend and protect his life (or Adriana's).

After his roommates were asleep, Tom Disillusioned himself and snuck back to the library, returning _Magick Moste Evil_ to the place where he had found it. He spent all night looking for texts on Horcruxes and immortality, but it was a fruitless search. Still, he'd barely touched a fraction of the Restricted Section's books. Something useful could be tucked away on a shelf he simply hadn't examined yet.

The sleepless night was catching up with him, but Tom ignored his fatigue, and once the sun had fully risen, he returned to the hospital wing. It was unlikely that Adriana would wake soon—last time this happened she'd been unconscious for nearly forty-eight hours—but he wanted to see her nonetheless.

* * *

She dreamed of a house in the countryside, large enough for a family of four. Adriana saw her mother: beautiful, golden-haired, sharp-eyed. And her father, a quiet man with gentle hands and a rare smile. Then she was in her room, in the dark, hungry and scared and alone. Welts striped her backside from shoulders to knees, and every movement brought a stinging reminder of her last beating. She pounded on the bedroom door and begged to be let out, but no one listened. No one came to free her.

Adriana woke, drifted from the dream back to reality. Her head ached, but there was no other pain, no welts or bruises, and she was at Hogwarts, not the house she'd grown up in. She sat up slowly and carefully, and it was only then that she noticed Tom in the chair beside her bed.

"You look terrible," Adriana said.

It was true. He appeared exhausted and peaked, and his black hair could have used a wash.

"So do you," he said, and she could believe it. "You were out for almost three days."

"Will you find Madam Graham?" Adriana asked. "I want her to clear me so I can get out of here."

"Not until you answer my questions," Tom said. He looked at her with that impossibly alert gaze, intense and focused. "Why does this keep happening to you? Are you ill?"

Adriana ran a hand through her hair, which badly needed to be brushed, and said, "It's none of your business, Tom. Let it alone."

"None of my—" He cut himself off, clearly too angry to speak. A moment later he said, "Of course it's my business. _You_ are my business, and I want to know what's happening."

"I barely understand it myself," Adriana said calmly. "I don't have the answers you want."

Tom asked, "And you're satisfied with that? Not knowing what's happening to you or how to stop it?"

"Of course not," Adriana said. "I've been researching constantly—that's the project I wouldn't tell you about last year—but I can't find any medical sources about a condition like mine. Not even one."

Madam Graham appeared so suddenly that Adriana might have thought she Apparated, if only Apparition was possible on Hogwarts grounds.

"Tom, it's time for you to go," she said. "I need to examine Adriana privately."

She watched her friend leave, and it was only as she was looking at his back that she began to wonder how long he'd been waiting for her to wake up. He must have sat by her bedside while she was unconscious for quite some time, which was a decidedly un-Tom-like thing to do.

Madam Graham began her examination, whispering incantations and running her wand up and down Adriana's torso and limbs. The longer it went on, the more concerned the older woman seemed.

"What's wrong?" Adriana asked.

Madam Graham frowned and said, "These episodes are taking a toll on your body. There's no major damage that I can detect, but even days after the incident, you're still in the shape of someone very ill."

That was nothing new. Adriana had known for years that these episodes made her sick and drained her of her magic. But hearing the worry in Madam Graham's voice made it feel all too real.

"Can I get my things and go back to Gryffindor Tower now?" she asked.

Madam Graham brought her the clothes she'd been wearing when she was admitted to the hospital wing. Adriana frowned and asked, "Where's my wand?"

"Oh, dear, I'm sorry to give you bad news," Madam Graham said, "but your wand was destroyed in the blast. You're going to have to replace it."

 _And how am I going to do that?_

Ollivander was the only wandmaker in Britain, so far as she knew.

Her feet carried her to Dumbledore's office without Adriana noticing, until she was standing right in front of her professor's door. She knocked, and he called for her to come in.

"What can I help you with?" he asked brightly.

"I haven't got a wand anymore," she said.

"Ah, yes, I heard about that." Dumbledore rummaged through his desk and said, "Luckily, I have an old wand of my own that I can lend to you for the time being."

He smiled gently and handed her a rather worn looking wand, longer and swishier than her last had been.

"What are the core and wood types?" she asked, giving the wand a wary sort of wave.

"Phoenix feather and red oak—good for dueling and creative magic," Dumbledore said. "If I'm not much mistaken, it will suit you well until you can visit Mr. Ollivander."

"Thank you, Professor," Adriana said. The red oak wand felt comfortable in her hand, and she suspected it would be less temperamental than her ebony.

"I'm glad to be of help," said Professor Dumbledore. "While I've got you here, there's a prospect I want to discuss with you."

"What is it?" she asked.

"How would you like to learn alchemy? I understand you're Horace's best student, and an exceptional foundation in Potions is necessary to succeed as an alchemist," Dumbledore said.

"Thank you," Adriana said. "I'd love to study it. Would I start next year, along with my other new classes?"

"Yes," said Dumbledore. "I'll give you fair warning: it's an unpopular course—probably because it's an incredibly demanding subject—so you may be the only student in the class."

"I don't care," Adriana said, "as long as I get to learn."

Later, in bed, she tried to focus on this new opportunity, a chance to study alchemy under one of the world's most brilliant wizards. But all Adriana could think about was her accident three days ago. The violence of it, and how she hadn't even been able to stay conscious afterward. These episodes were getting worse, and she didn't need Madam Graham to tell her how severely they were affecting her, both magically and physically, to know that it was true.

* * *

Adriana returned to classes on Monday, still pale and sick-looking, carrying a new wand. She barely spoke to Tom throughout Potions, busying herself with her work and answering his questions with short, blunt responses. Something had been off about her ever since she'd been released from the hospital wing on Saturday. Perhaps she was still tired from the accident she'd had last week. Whatever the reason, Tom did not like to be ignored.

He chopped valerian root for the Truth Serum they were brewing and whispered, "I'm going back to the Restricted Section tonight. Wanna come with me?"

"No," she said, voice subdued. "You can go on your own."

Adriana was as curious as a cat, and he'd never known her to turn down a trip to the library, much less to the Restricted Section.

"What's wrong with you?" Tom asked. "You're not acting like yourself."

"I'm fine," she said, grinding a small hippogriff bone to fine powder. "Don't worry about it."

That was far from reassuring, but pressuring her to talk in the middle of class was probably not the best idea.

That evening, Tom held court in the Slytherin common room. Celeste perched on the arm of his chair, overly familiar for his taste, but he didn't ask her to move.

Today, Grayson had put a firework beneath Jack Oldham's chair during Defense Against the Dark Arts, and the slow-witted Mudblood boy had startled so loudly and sprang from his seat so quickly that the whole class laughed.

"It's a shame we can't give the Mudbloods what they truly deserve," Adrastos said. "Instead we have to resort to stupid pranks and empty threats."

"Hey," said Grayson, grinning, "it was a good prank, not a stupid one."

 _Adrastos is right_ , Tom thought. _But when I find the Chamber of Secrets I'll teach the Mudbloods a lesson they won't soon forget._

"They strut around like they own the place," said Melanie. "Because Dippet isn't brave enough to do what needs to be done and expel all the Mudbloods from our school."

"The Ministry would be up in arms in a heartbeat if the headmaster expelled anyone based on blood purity," Celeste said reasonably. "His hands are tied."

"I suppose that's true," said Melanie.

The topic of conversation turned from Mudbloods to the approaching exams, and Celeste smiled at Tom, saying, "I suppose you'll be at the top of our class in every subject, once again."

"Actually, Sharrow beat him in Potions last year," Grayson reminded everyone helpfully.

 _If he didn't come from such a good family I'd hex him_ , Tom thought.

Instead, he smiled and said, "That's true. She did."

Tom presided over the gossip and bickering for another few hours, until most of his classmates had gone to bed. Only Celeste remained with him, now sitting on the floor by his feet, close to the fire. She smiled up at him and asked, "How would you like to spend some time with my family this summer?"

"You mean come to your house?" Tom asked.

"Yes," Celeste said. "It'll get you out of that orphanage you hate for a couple of weeks. And there are so many events going on over the summer. You'll finally get to meet some proper people."

"You don't think your parents would mind?" he asked.

"My mother adores you," Celeste said. "She was so impressed by you when you went to the Prince's Palace with us. I'm certain she'll say yes, and Father will listen to her."

"Then I'd love to," Tom said. He reached over and ran his fingers through her hair. It was silky and straight, and she shivered a little under his touch. "Thank you, Celeste."

She really was too simple. It almost took the fun out of playing with her.

Celeste went to her dormitory after that, leaving Tom alone in the common room. He Disillusioned himself and snuck upstairs to the library, a practice he had grown used to in the last few months. He'd actually crossed paths with Pringle a couple of times, but the caretaker never saw through his charm work. Tonight he made it to the Restricted Section without incident and began his search anew. He looked through books on Inferi and werewolves and curses, and just as he began to think it would be another fruitless night, he found a large black volume titled _Secrets of the Darkest Art_. The introduction plainly stated that this book would provide instructions on how to create a Horcrux.

He read the text from beginning to end, and when he learned what a Horcrux was—a receptacle for a piece of the human soul, binding one's essence to the earth, even in the event of the body perishing—he smiled, wide and gleeful. He could not recall ever feeling such a wild happiness, not even in the cave when he'd punished Dennis and Amy.

 _Here it is!_ Tom thought. _I've found it._ This was the answer he'd been looking for, a way to cheat death.

Perhaps the process of a Horcrux's creation should have bothered him, but it did not. After all, the murder of one person seemed a small price to pay for immortality.


End file.
